National Football League

Marvin Lewis says criticism of Dalton is 'baloney'

Published May. 31, 2014 4:32 p.m. ET

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If there is one area where Marvin Lewis has remained consistent in his 12 seasons as Bengals head coach, it has been defending his starting quarterback.

He did it for seven seasons with Carson Palmer and has continued to do it the last three with Andy Dalton. With Dalton though, the defending of him has been more vocal and impassioned.

The latest place where Lewis spoke up about Dalton was to SI.com's Don Banks. With many looking at Dalton as the culprit for the Bengals 27-10 loss to the Chargers in the first round of the playoffs last year, Lewis said that blaming the quarterback alone was "baloney."

"Everyone wants to blame our quarterback for everything, but in that game against San Diego it was both offense and defense," Lewis said in the interview. "It's easy to point at one guy, but baloney, the football team didn't play as well as we needed to win."

With many pointing to Dalton's deficiencies in three playoff losses -- his overall rating is 56.2 -- Lewis continues to say that Dalton remains his guy. Any comments by Lewis about Dalton this offseason are more magnified since the Bengals are discussing an extension.

Lewis' comments to Banks really aren't any different from what he has been saying since January.

During the league meetings in March, Lewis pointed to the fact that Dalton is only the fourth quarterback to take a team to the playoffs his first three years in the league.

"He continues to ascend and get better," Lewis said. "We put a chip on him three years ago and he was our guy. We never wavered. He took every snap. He's taken every snap since he's been a Cincinnati Bengal. He never lined up with the second group. He lined up with the first group. We've been committed to him."

Various reports have Dalton seeking in the neighborhood of $15-18 million a year, which for a quarterback that has thrown six interceptions and only one touchdown in the postseason seems a little far fetched. Besides the playoff record, Dalton is 8-10 against the AFC North and 2-4 in prime-time games.

Brown has shown before that he will pay big money for a quarterback as Palmer was the league's highest-paid player for two seasons. But for one that continues to go through extremes -- Dalton had five games with a 100-plus passer rating and three below 60 -- it might be better for both sides to play it out. Lewis can extol the virtues of Dalton until he's blue in the face but until the Bengals end the league's longest current postseason win drought (23 seasons) it isn't going to matter.

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