AFC Notes: Bengals, Colts, Jaguars, Jets

Bengals

• Jim Owczarski reports that Bengals rookie TE Mason Schreck suffered an MCL injury last weekend and will be out for awhile. According to Owczarski, Schreck’s injury could impact roster decisions later this week.

Colts

Colts owner Jim Irsay explained that they were hoping Andrew Luck‘s shoulder injury was going to heal on its own and not require surgery. However, that proved to not be the case and his status for Week 1 is now in question.

“There are a lot of times that you hope that you don’t have to have that surgery,” Irsay said a few weeks ago, via Mike Wells of ESPN.com. “You hope that it heals on its own. It wasn’t one of those that totally subluxed out that where it was a ruptured or something like that, where it violently came out and went back in, that sort of thing. It was a hard call. Often those are the hardest types to deal with. Do you or don’t you type of thing.”

“I don’t think we would do anything differently given the chance to have done it any differently,” Irsay said. “I think it’s just one of those situations where I think we waited until we felt like we had to do it. We picked the best time to do it, and I think it’s going to prove to be something that was beneficial for [Luck] to have. A lot of positive things happened early in his career and [the goal was] to have the least amount of interruption time and get back to being completely, completely 100 percent going forward.”

Jaguars

Jaguars HC Doug Marrone said that Blake Bortles has looked great since he was benched in favor of Chad Henne last week.

“I think he’s doing a nice job,” Marrone said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “I really do. For me, personally, it’s the best I’ve seen him.”

Bortles explained that he feels more comfortable and confident in the team’s offensive system.

“I feel like I’m just playing,” Bortles said. “I feel comfortable. I feel confident with the system. I feel comfortable in it. I feel comfortable with the guys that I’m playing with.

“You take each individual play as its own entity and you go out there and go through it and play it and do as best as you possibly can and then move on, good or bad, move on from it and do the same thing with the next one.”

• Marrone said that Jaguars rookie WR Dede Westbrook didn’t move around as well as he would have liked on Tuesday. As of now, they aren’t sure if Westbrook will be able to play Thursday. (Michael DiRocco)
• Westbrook traveled to Philadelphia on Monday to see a core muscle specialist.

Jets

Jets HC Todd Bowles believes Christian Hackenberg still has plenty of time to grow and develop as a quarterback in the NFL.

“I would say that he’s learning the offense and he didn’t have enough playing time yet,” Bowles said, via Pro Football Talk. “We got him some significant playing time. It has nothing to do with his development. He’s 22-years old, he has time to grow and he’ll grow from it.”