Bengals Marvin Lewis on his future: ‘Wasting time talking about this’

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis repeatedly stated during his Monday press conference that he wants the topic of his future to die down and wait for it to be settled after the season ends.

"We're really wasting time talking about this right now," Lewis said in response to questions about the ESPN report on Sunday that said he intends to walk away from the Bengals at the end of the season.

“The less we talk about it, just let it die down,” Lewis said. “Let’s go win these football games and let things happen the way they do.”

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Following Sunday’s 34-7 loss at Minnesota, Lewis said the report was inaccurate and that he has not yet made a decision on his future.

Bengals owner and president Mike Brown has not said anything about Lewis’ status since the pre-training camp luncheon in July, when he said it would be addressed at the end of the season.

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Lewis is coaching in the final year of his contract for the first time since 2010, and after falling to 5-9 and officially being eliminated from the playoffs with Sunday’s loss, the Bengals will fall short of the postseason in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2007-08.

Asked if he wants to be back next year, Lewis said, “I want to coach football.”

Asked if he wants to coach football in Cincinnati, he said, “Sure,” before asking the reporter if he was making an offer.

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With a career record of 123-112-3, Lewis is the winningest coach in franchise history, and the longest tenured at 15 seasons.

He appeared irritated by the report in his postgame press conference Sunday and repeatedly tried to move on from the line of questioning Monday. When asked if he would investigate the source of the report, Lewis said he would not.

“I don’t need to investigate anything,” he said. “It’s a waste of time. Again, just let it go. It’s an unfortunate thing because it causes a lot of people a lot of angst for no reason. It’s not going to change anything that occurs. So let’s just get to the end and see what happens.”

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The Bengals play host to Detroit on Sunday in their home finale before traveling to Baltimore for the final game of the season Dec. 31.

Lewis and Brown are expected to meet Jan. 1 to discuss his future.

Why not just get it over with now?

“It’s not the pertinent thing right now. The pertinent thing right now is to coach the football team, and that’s what my job is and that’s what I’m supposed to do. We’re going to address next year when next year comes.”


SUNDAY’S GAME

Lions at Bengals, 1 p.m., Fox, 700, 1530, 102.7, 104.7

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