One of the most surprising coaching moves of the NFL offseason involved a move that didn't actually happen. 

Although it had been reported that Marvin Lewis was going to leave Cincinnati after the 2017 season, Lewis' departure never came. Instead of parting ways after 15 years together, Bengals owner Mike Brown signed Lewis to a new two-year deal that will keep him tied to the Bengals through the 2019 season. 

When Lewis was re-introduced at a press conference on January 3, one notable absence was Brown. Since he wasn't there, he didn't have to explain why he decided to keep his coach, who's been with the Bengals since 2003.

Brown doesn't do many interviews, but he did decide to do two this week -- with Bengals.com and the Cincinnati Enquirer -- and in both interviews, he attempted to explain why he decided to stick with Lewis. 

According to Brown, a big reason why he decided to keep Lewis is because of the way the Bengals played in their final two games of the season. Although the Bengals had nothing to play for, they still beat the Lions and Ravens, who were both still fighting for playoff spots. 

"I don't think he lost the football team. I think that was evidenced by the last couple games," Brown said, via the Enquirer. "The players like Marvin. They support him. I think that's a good thing."

For Brown, those last two games apparently made a huge difference. 

"I chose not to make a decision on what we were going to do going forward until all the evidence had been submitted," Brown said, via the Enquirer. "And that meant playing through the full season and not making a call prematurely. I would say that while we had serious reverses and they were unsettling, to put it mildly, we bounced back at the end of the year. We beat two teams that were in playoff runs. We beat them in games that were important for them where they gave their best shot and I was impressed how we rebounded. That played into what was in my mind when I had to make a final call."

When the Bengals' season was over, Brown didn't see a team that finished 7-9, but a team that came within a few plays of finishing 9-7 or 10-6. After all, the Bengals lost on the final play of two separate games (a 27-24 overtime loss to the Packers in Week 3 and a 23-20 loss to the Steelers in Week 14). Besides that, the Bengals also lost two other games by four points. 

"They were one-play games," Brown said, via the Enquirer. "And if we had managed to win our share of those, we would've been out of that middle group of teams. In my mind, there's a middle group that runs from say 6-10 to 9-7. That's over a dozen teams."

Lewis has been in Cincinnati since 2003, and Brown didn't deny that his longevity and familiarity with the team was a big reason he was brought back. 

"I made the call for more than one reason," Brown said, via Bengals.com. "It gives us our best chance to be successful this coming season. Marvin gives us continuity. That's important in this league. I also made the call because I felt he deserved consideration for all the time and effort he has put in here. He's been our head coach for 15 years. That ought to be to his credit."

Brown is very well aware of the fact that Lewis has an 0-7 record in the postseason, but he's not going to hold that against him. The Bengals owner sounded optimistic when he was asked if he thought Lewis could take them to the next level. 

"I think he can manage. I think he has managed it in the past and I think we've been very close," Brown said, via the Enquirer. "We haven't quite gotten where we needed to get. He knows that. I know that. I do think, repeating again, that our best chance to get there is with him having another run at it. He brings a lot to the table."

One non-Lewis related topic that Brown did touch on is the potential relocation of the Bengals. As owner in 1996, Brown threatened to move the team to Baltimore before getting a new stadium in Cincinnati. The Bengals' current lease runs through 2026, and Brown, who's 82, doesn't see the team leaving Cincinnati during his lifetime.  

"This is just a figment of somebody's imagination. We have no intention of moving," Brown said, via Bengals.com. "We had an opportunity to move when we came here to the stadium. We turned it down knowing full well that we were turning down literally hundreds of millions of dollars that we would not see here that we would have seen if we moved. I think that ought to be understood. It seems to be ignored."