Rex Ryan under contract with Ravens

Bengals coaches are off this week, so the team's Paul Brown Stadium offices are quiet. The stillness reflects the club's willingness to take its time to hire a third defensive coordinator in head coach Marvin Lewis' five-year run.

Attention has focused on former Baltimore coordinator Rex Ryan, who has interviewed for the head-coaching positions with the Ravens and Falcons.

If he doesn't land one of those jobs, look for Ryan to stay with the Ravens as coordinator, especially if Marty Schottenheimer is hired.

The Bengals would have to get permission from the Ravens to interview Ryan, an unlikely scenario given the Bengals are an AFC North division rival of Baltimore's.

Rex, along with other assistants, has at least one year left on his contract. We would have to give the Bengals permission to speak to anyone under contract," Kevin Byrne, Ravens senior vice president/public and community relations, wrote in an e-mail today to The Enquirer.

The Ravens are allowing Ryan and other coaches dismissed last week, along with head coach Brian Billick, to use desks and phones at Ravens headquarters in Owings Mills. Md.

Under league rules, if a coach is under contract, teams can deny other teams permission for an interview for any job other than head coach. Carolina denied the Bengals permission to interview secondary coach Tim Lewis for Cincinnati's vacant coordinator, though it was a promotion.

The rumor was floated this week that the Bengals might be willing to trade a draft choice or two to the Ravens for Ryan's release.

The Bengals are expected to receive several compensatory draft picks – one possibly as high as the third round – for the significant number of unrestricted free agents lost in the last free agency period. (Those picks won’t be known until late March or early April.)

But a league rule listed in its anti-tampering policy prohibits the exchange of draft picks or cash for any individual under contract with another team – except for a head coach or high-level club employees, such as a club president or general manager.

Bengals secondary coach Kevin Coyle and Falcons coordinator Mike Zimmer are the known candidates to replace Chuck Bresnahan as Bengals coordinator. He was fired last week along with linebackers coach Ricky Hunley.