Bengals

Bengals HC Zac Taylor was not happy with RB Chase Brown‘s comments regarding the defense at the end of Sunday’s loss against the Bears, with Taylor clearly trying to make sure the locker room doesn’t fracture after two tough losses.

“Not if you’re not doing everything you can, on your own,” Taylor said, via PFT. “And I’ve pointed it out with Chase. There was two big plays that we could’ve done better that would’ve led to points. And so, I think I liked [the reaction from] Ja’Marr [Chase] a little bit better. I can tell Ja’Marr’s frustrated, but he didn’t want guys coming at him if he had a poor performance or something that he was disappointed in. I trust that that’s a one-time thing, and we’ll learn from that. That’s not how we want to react, and one of our best players, one of our highest character players I think in moments of frustration said that, and I don’t expect it to happen again.”

Browns

Browns TE David Njoku was giddy to hear that he’s remaining in Cleveland after Tuesday’s trade deadline passed.

“Of course [a trade] is a possibility,” Njoku said, via ESPN. “But I’m in Cleveland, baby. I’m not going nowhere. I ain’t f—ing leaving.”

Njoku reiterated he would love to sign a contract extension to stay with the Browns beyond this year, which is the last on his current deal. 

Steelers

The Steelers standing pat at the trade deadline likely signals the team looking towards the future and not wanting to part with valuable draft assets, per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor. However, the team did make an in-season deal this year and has generally shown under GM Omar Khan that it’s willing to be more aggressive than it has historically. 

“I just know that if you’re trending in the right direction, if you’ve got the desire to be in this thing, as the road gets narrow, usually you’re open to adding talent that can assist you, whether it’s attrition-based or whether it’s just areas where you fall short,” Steelers HC Mike Tomlin said. “And that’s something that I think some of the competitive teams are interested in year in and year out. It’s just a natural component of this thing.“