Marvin Lewis, back on the hot seat for good?

The Cincinanti Bengals enter Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots at 2-3 on the season and coming off a blowout loss in Dallas.

It’s not necessarily a normal position for Marvin Lewis and Co. to be in during the regular season. Here’s a team that started the 2015 campaign with eight consecutive wins. That came on the heels of the team boasting a 3-1 record heading into mid-October of the 2014 season.

The regular season hasn’t been an issue for Lewis under this current group. Cincinnati has won 10-plus games in each of the past four years. Not since 2011 has Cincinnati had to sweat out the late part of the regular slate hoping for a playoff appearance.

That has changed dramatically this season. With a loss to the Patriots on Sunday, the Bengals would fall to 2-4 for the first time since all the way back in 2010, Carson Palmer’s final season in burnt orange.

This has made Lewis’ job rather safe from September through December over the course of the majority of his now 14-year career in Cincinnati.

Does that change now? Will Lewis find himself joining other coaches on the hot seat with a loss on Sunday? Is he already on the hot seat?

There’s a lot of factors to look at here. But we must note just how loyal the Bengals’ brass has been to Lewis. Too loyal for some objective observers.

Would it really be willing to completely scrap the Lewis regime midstream? This is to say, move on from him in the middle of the season. History suggests this is unlikely.

Though, recency bias itself tells us this could be a possibility. In no uncertain terms, the Bengals have made it clear that the 2016 season is Super Bowl or bust for Lewis and Co.

A recent one-year extension doesn’t change it. Instead, that was simply to make sure Lewis wasn’t a lame duck coaching out the final year of his contract.

It was for show. It was to save face publicly. Maybe to show some confidence in Lewis. Confidence most level-headed individuals believe the Bengals don’t have.

See. It’s not about a potential 2-4 start to the season. It’s, instead, about the team’s struggles in the postseason carrying over to the regular year. That’s regression. That’s something a contending team can’t afford. And in reality, it speaks more to Lewis potentially overstaying his welcome in Cincinnati than anything else.

The question that needs to be asked here is whether Cincinnati’s brass thinks Lewis can’t just lead the team to the playoffs. Much like each of the past five seasons, it’s all about winning in the playoffs.

Once that question turns to whether the Bengals can even make the playoffs, the larger question about Lewis’ job status becomes more prevalent.

As unfair as it might be, the backdrop of this discussion will surely include Cincinnati’s lack of postseason success under Lewis.

Here’s a head coach that’s led his team to an 0-7 playoff record with it being outscored by an average of 12.3 points per game.

Is a 9-7 record and a first-round playoff exit a reasonable result for Cincinnati’s brass? A loss on Sunday, and that would likely be the best this year’s version of the Bengals can do, at least when it comes to the team’s regular season record.

That’s only magnified with games remaining against six winning teams, including Sunday’s affair with New England.

So. No, Lewis likely isn’t on the hot seat now. A loss to the Patriots on Sunday, bringing the team to a 2-4 mark, would likely change this.