AFC Notes: Bengals, Browns, Raiders

Bengals

Bengals owner Mike Brown said he has no intention of relocating the team to another city, despite some speculation that they could be a team to watch in the coming years.

“This is just a figment of somebody’s imagination,” Brown said, via Bengals.com. “We have no intention of moving. 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.”

“I played a role in bringing it here,” Brown added. “I played a role in keeping it here. I don’t know if there’s much more I can do. I would hazard to guess the Bengals will be here when I’m not.”

Browns

Wyoming QB Josh Allen said at the Senior Bowl on Monday that he “want[s] to be the guy that turns around the Cleveland Browns.”

“If I’m fortunate enough to become a Cleveland Brown, you can expect everything from me,” Allen told Bull and Fox on 92.3 The Fan.“I want to be the guy that turns around the Cleveland Browns. The guy that does that is going to be immortalized in Cleveland forever.”

There has been some buzz about Allen possibly being a target for the Browns with the No. 1 overall pick and Allen sounds like he would love to hear his name called to open round one.

“To think about that and to put yourself in that situation and in those shoes, you gotta love that as a quarterback and you gotta love that as a football player and competitor,” Allen said, via Cleveland.com. “This is something that can really be set in stone forever, if you’re the guy that can help turn this Cleveland Browns team around. I know they’ve got the youngest team in the NFL, they’ve got the most cap space, the most high draft picks, brand new GM who has done a lot of good things in his past.

“I’m not saying if I want to be drafted by a certain team or not but I definitely think this is a situation in Cleveland where this is the time where a quarterback can step in and do his job without worrying or having to worry about the notion that this is the place where quarterbacks go to die because I definitely think there are some good things going on with the Browns organization.”

Raiders

Raiders QB Derek Carr says he wants new HC Jon Gruden to be “tough” on him.

“I want him to be tough on me,” Carr told Scott Bair of NBC Sports Bay Area on Monday. “For anyone who thinks I want him to be a different way has no clue about me or how I play football or how I prepare to play this game. I don’t need to tell stories about how I prepare or manage myself.

“[Jon] and I are going to get along great. I hope that he demands of me. I hope he’s hard on me. I don’t need to know he loves me. He has already told me that about 20 times. I appreciate that and we’ll be friends forever, but I know he’ll be demanding and tell me what I need to do. Let’s go fix problems that I have and let’s do what I need to do to win championships. Hopefully that will give people some insight and hopefully that’s the story that gets out, because that’s the truth.”

• Peter King guesses that Steelers free agent RB Le’Veon Bell ends up going to the “highest bidder” and suggests the Raiders as a team to “watch” for Bell.
• We have Bell featured in our Top 100 – 2018 NFL Free Agents list.