CINCINNATI -- Marvin Lewis, who's mired in one of his most disappointing seasons, isn't waiting for a public display of support from Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown about his future job status.
While Brown, 81, has ceded some of the day-to-day duties and power to his daughter Katie Blackburn, her husband, Troy, and director of player personnel Duke Tobin, Brown still remains the ultimate decision-maker. If Lewis needs to know where he stands, he simply talks to him.
"I have one-stop shopping. I talk to Mike every day. And I don't have to hear from someone else what they think ... because it's what he thinks," Lewis told ESPN.com.
Fourteen seasons in, Lewis and Brown's working relationship is as strong as ever, even in the middle of a difficult year.
"I report to Mike and that's all that really matters that way," Lewis said. "We have the candid conversations we have all the time. It's just the way it is."
Unless the Bengals (4-7-1) win out, they will finish the season without a winning record for the first time since 2010. They are considered underachievers after they entered the season with expectations to contend for the AFC North and make the playoffs for the sixth straight year. Both are unlikely to happen.
Lewis' contract, given a one-year extension in the spring, runs through the end of the 2017 season. While some pundits have publicly wondered if the Bengals could benefit from a new voice, Lewis feels he already received Brown's support last winter.
"We reassured it last January the day after we lost in the playoffs," Lewis said.
Commitments don't mean much in the NFL, where coaches get hired and fired on a regular basis, but Lewis is bolstered by what he believes is a mutual trust between him and Brown that has been established through years of working together.
"I think the thing with Mike is that he's been in this business a long time. And he takes every loss as hard as I do or anybody else does here. And it affects him," Lewis said. "But on the other hand, he trusts me to move the football team in the right direction. ... that's the commitment that he's made to me ... and that's the commitment I've made to him, to get his football team in the playoffs and through the playoffs all the time and be world champions...
"As long as I'm going to do this here, that's what my goal is. Anything short of that, I'd be wasting time worrying about it other than spending time worrying about how to beat the next team."
It goes both ways though. Any time they've worked out a new contract, Brown has always asked Lewis, 58, if he wants to keep coaching, to make sure they're both 100 percent committed.
"It's a joint thing, as I tell people. This is a joint thing, everybody has to do it together," Lewis said. "Otherwise it doesn't work. They committed to me and I've committed to them. I'm going to work my tail off for them to get it right. This year we didn't quite get it right yet. We've still got a chance to get it right. ... It's happened (before). So we've just got to keep going."