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CINCINNATI -- Marvin Lewis has been criticized over the years for showing relatively little emotion when discussing the poor play his team has occasionally had. Very few games have gone as poorly in his 12-year run as the Cincinnati Bengals' coach as last Thursday's 24-3 loss at home to the Cleveland Browns. Because of that, maybe he felt it was finally time to show a little extra animation.  That's exactly what he did late in Wednesday's news conference, surprisingly turning on the energy. At the end of a long answer to a seemingly innocuous question about special teams, Lewis invoked a little more passion than normal as he emphatically rattled off stats in between pleading for his team to showcase improvements Sunday when it travels to New Orleans.
"We are paid to win, we are paid to make plays and we have got to get it done," Lewis said with an emotional edge very seldom seen outside the locker room. It was clear Lewis was quite perturbed by last week's performance. For a second time in a month, his offense couldn't amass 200 yards and it couldn't get in the end zone. For a seventh straight game, his defense was exposed versus the run, allowing ball carriers to rip off another 100-yard game. Even the special teams, mostly consistently good all year, had issues, Lewis surmised. "We've got to keep being as attacking and efficient that way as we have been," Lewis said of his special teams. "We've got great ball placement, but the other night when we needed two great punts we didn't get two good punts. Again, all of those things matter in the great scheme of things and that's why you don't win. "When all those things happen at the wrong time -- we miss a wide open cross, we get bumped off a route, we get bumped in the pocket -- we are going to have an issue. We miss a tackle out in the flat and a 6-yard gain turns into a 16-yard gain. Those things happen, you lose football games." According to what Lewis said above, that's not what the Bengals get paid to do. Quarterback Andy Dalton, a big source of Thursday night's frustrations after compiling a career-low passer rating of 2.0, agreed with Pro Bowl offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth's assessment that this was a "ticked off" team coming into Sunday. On Monday, Whitworth told reporters he sensed anger among his teammates after the loss. "The way we performed, that doesn't sit well with a lot of people, it doesn't sit well with me," Dalton said. "Obviously, Whit's saying it. So that's the attitude that we have right now. And the best thing you can do is play another game after you play a game like that one."
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