AFC Notes: Bengals, Browns, Steelers, Najee Harris

Bengals

• The Cincinnati Enquirer reports the Bengals are working to sell the naming rights to Paul Brown Stadium, which has been one of just a handful of teams to not have a naming rights deal in place.
• According to the report, the Bengals have notified city and county officials of their plans to prepare them and hopefully secure quick approvals before the start of the regular season. 
• A recent study showed that Paul Brown Stadium needs around $500 million in renovations, so a naming rights deal would cover a decent portion of this sum, even if other revenue would need to be secured. 

Browns

Browns T Chris Hubbard has been hampered by a triceps injury and commented on both his recovery and the group of players that he is hoping to help succeed in Cleveland this season.

“We’re all seasoned together,” Hubbard told Ashley Bastock of Cleveland.com. “We are marinating together. I feel like once we all marinate over time, we can grill out here on the field. I think that’s the main thing, we mesh well together. We have a very special group. And I think especially with the depth, guys that have played and been through adversity, who have seen a lot and done a lot.”

“The only thing I could do is get it right back and prepare where it needs to be,” Hubbard said of his injury. “I couldn’t have done it any different way. So I think for me, it was just like, it happened, it slightly tore, so I had to get that tear fixed. I had a couple of opportunities to come out here to see how it felt. And then I knew it wasn’t 100 percent where I needed to be. I didn’t want to hurt the team, me going out there and putting out bad film and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, making us look a certain type of way. So it was no doubt that I needed that surgery to be able to repair and regather and regroup. I wanted to see if I would be able to push it, that was my main thing. And then when I wasn’t able to push it, I asked the doctors like, ‘Hey, can we get this thing done?’”

Steelers

Steelers RB Najee Harris led the league with 381 carries as a rookie but said during an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show that he has no problem having 500 carries in a season if the team is going to win games.

“I can get 500, goddamnit,” Harris said, via SteelersDepot.com. “I didn’t have an issue with it. It was the media who had an issue with it. I told them every game, I was like,  ‘Man look, if this is the way we’re winning, I can carry the load.’ I trained to carry loads. I mean, it’s not something that I haven’t done before. I did it in college, high school, you know what I mean, NFL. . . . There was a long streak where someone was saying if I have 25 carries, then we’re undefeated. So OK, this is our identity right here. So, let’s keep this going on. Let’s keep this going. So, man, listen, if I get 500 carries, as long as we’re winning, it doesn’t really matter.”