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After 15 years as the Cincinnati Bengals’ head coach, Marvin Lewis is planning to leave the team after the end of this season, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
According to the report from Schefter, Lewis will explore opportunities elsewhere once January 1, 2018 rolls around.
Many expected Lewis would step down after this season as he does not have any additional time on his contract and the Bengals are finishing their second straight losing season. Lewis is the second longest tenured coach in the NFL.
For what it’s word, Schefter’s report does add that Lewis is willing to work in the front office or for an advisor to one of his former coaches:
If a head-coaching job does not materialize, sources said Lewis would be interested in working in another team's front office or as a coaching adviser for a former Bengals assistant coach who has gone on to become a head coach, such as Mike Zimmer, whose Minnesota Vikings host the Bengals on Sunday.
Lewis became the Bengals’ head coach in 2003 and helped bring this franchise out of the lost decade that was the 1990s and early 2000s. He helped the Bengals make the playoffs for the first time in over a decade in 2005, and he wound up taking the Bengals to seven playoff trips.
However, the Bengals failed to win a playoff game in those seven trips, all of which ended on Wild Card weekend. While Lewis has done a lot for this franchise, failing to get them past the first weekend of playoff games after 15 years is a bad mark on his overall career.