AFC Notes: Chase Brown, Andrei Iosivas, Patrick Ricard, Bengals, Ravens, Steelers

Bengals

Bengals second-year WR Andrei Iosivas and RB Chase Brown have been working with personal receivers coach Drew Lieberman this offseason. Lieberman mentioned that Iosivas and Brown have shown the “fastest improvement” of all the clients he’s had over a 15-year span.

“I would say Andrei and Chase made the fastest improvement of any players I’ve ever had in the program of 15 years doing this, this is year seven at the NFL level,” Lieberman said, via Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic. “I’ve never had two players improve faster.”

Brown has learned that being a receiver requires running routes in “full stride” and is picking up all the nuances involved. 

“The main thing is the technique of it, just running full stride,” Brown said. “Route running is an art. You see a lot of guys, the top-tier guys make it look easy, but there is a lot that goes into it, full stride, break points, hip shifts. There’s a ton of things that break down a good route runner.”

Iosivas thinks his curl-route and cuts are much more precise now and understands when to drop his hips. 

“My curls, all my cuts are really, really fundamentally sound now,” Iosivas said. “If you learn to drop your hips consistently and do it over and over and over again — everyone says, ‘Drop your hips, drop your hips,’ but you need to work on it in the correct way and not shorten your stride when you get into the break. We are just hammering all those details.”

Ravens

Throughout the evolution of the offense from former OC Greg Roman to OC Todd Monken, Ravens FB Patrick Ricard‘s role has changed drastically. Baltimore HC John Harbaugh touched on Ricard’s ability to fill a variety of roles because of his complete skill set. 

“It’ll evolve kind of the direction it goes, in terms of where the offense goes and what we need, but there’s always going to be a requirement for a guy like Pat [Ricard], if you have a guy like Pat,” Harbaugh said, via Kevin Oestreicher of the Ravens Wire. “The questions last year were pretty much kind of debunked. He played a lot, and I think it’s going to be the same thing this year. You’ve got a good football player; you have to put him out there. He’ll be out there playing, and we’ll find a lot of great roles for him to do.”

“The nice thing is, he can actually run routes and catch the ball, and that’s something that people kind of take for granted that he wouldn’t be able to do. I can remember Coach [Wade] Phillips out here – I love Coach Phillips – when he was [the] defensive coordinator for the [Los Angeles] Rams, basically saying, ‘Don’t cover [No.] 42, he’s a defensive lineman.’ The very next play, he caught a touchdown pass in the flat. That’s right, don’t cover [No.] 42.”

Steelers

Steelers OL coach Pat Meyer has been thrilled with how first-round OL Troy Fautanu has handled the transition from LT to RT. 

“Troy’s learned a lot of the different techniques very quickly,” Meyer said, via ESPN. “The first couple days his timing was off because the speed of the game is different — now we don’t have any pads on yet, so nothing’s going to be determined until we get into camp — but his timing’s much better in terms of his get-off and run game and his sets and throwing his hands and being aggressive with his hands and whatnot. He’s improved tremendously from rookie minicamp to now.”