Arizona State football’s vision of “the pro model” expanded on Tuesday when it added former Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis as a special advisor to Herm Edwards’ staff.

“What Marvin brings to the table: great work ethic, exceptional skills in organization … analyzing film, contributing to the development of our coaching staff,” Edwards said of the move while joining Burns & Gambo on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station Tuesday.

Edwards added he discussed with Lewis the potential of bringing him on for roughly a year.

The two have known each other for over 30 years and that type of relationship built on the football knowledge they have will help the program, according to Edwards.

“We’re pretty familiar with how we coach and I think that helps,” he said. “And just any little thing that I can improve on or something that he brings to the table that he might have done differently — we’ll have those conversations daily.”

Lewis, who coached the Bengals from 2003-2018, is a well-known face in football circles thanks to that run of over 250 games coaching leading Cincinnati. During Lewis’ 16 seasons with the Bengals, he led the team to the playoffs seven times with five consecutive postseason appearances from 2011-15.

Lewis won the NFL Coach of the Year award in 2009 as Cincinnati finished the regular season as AFC North champions. The Bengals were division winners four times under Lewis.

That made it a special surprise for the players to find out Lewis was going to be a part of their process.

“Having him around is going to help us tremendously,” Edwards said. “I know when I introduced him to the players today they were excited. Their eyes were like, ‘really?! really?!’ Yeah, really.”

The bottom line for Edwards is that it’s another football mind he respects to have around and bounce ideas off of as he looks to further develop his program in Tempe

“Another set of eyes for me and his knowledge,” he said.

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