Blame Marvin Lewis For Pacman Jones Mentoring Joe Mixon

Marvin Lewis is entering his 15th season as head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals. During the Lewis era the Bengals have mostly been a punchline due to their penchant for troubled players, moderate regular season success and constant and complete postseason failure.

In 7 trips to the postseason under Marvin Lewis the Bengals have scored 88 total points. All those games were Wild Card losses. The most points the Bengals have ever scored in a playoff game under Marvin Lewis is 17.

With so much failure, you have to figure Lewis has a great personality, but no. It doesn’t seem that way. Here’s his reaction to the NFL deciding to allow more touchdown celebrations. Via ESPN:

"“I’m not for that at all,” Lewis, who is on the NFL Competition Committee, said of the change. “We had a good standard, and the whole standard has always been, you want to teach people how to play the game the correct way and go about it the correct way, and that’s not a very good example for young people.”"

OK, so he’s also not into fun of any kind. He must be a noted disciplinarian. A no-nonsense guy who won’t stand for anything less than impeccable behavior from his players. Again, no. Here’s what he had to say after video emerged of Pacman Jones’ latest arrest. Via Cincinnati.com:

"“As time has come out, other than his language what did he do?”"

The language Lewis was referring to was Jones repeatedly calling a police officer a “bitch” and adding “suck my d–k” and “I hope you die.” Lewis is right. That’s just language. It’s not like he punched a woman in the face. He hasn’t done that since 2013. And his most famous incident involving hitting a woman in the face just celebrated it’s 10th anniversary.

That brings us to this week when Pacman Jones and Joe Mixon attended a Future concert together. According to TMZ Jones mentors “a lot of young players on the team” and Mixon, who has also hit a woman, is one of them. And who better to learn from than the teammate most often and most recently arrested. Who better to show a young player how to stay out of trouble and handle himself as a professional.

Under Marvin Lewis the Cincinnati Bengals have never won a playoff game or scored more than 17 points in a postseason game. They’ve signed Pacman Jones. They’ve kept Pacman Jones through multiple arrests. I guess the fact that the arrests have become less frequent is a factor. Instead he just gets into incidents on the field. Like when he ripped off Amari Cooper’s helmet and smashed his head against it in 2015. Or bumped a ref to help his team blow one of those 7 playoff games.

Now the Bengals – still somehow under Marvin Lewis – have drafted Joe Mixon. And they’re somehow allowing Pacman Jones to “mentor” him. None of this is what anyone would call a “good example for young people.”