Bengals

Bengals C Ted Karras is entering the 11th year of his career and fifth season in Cincinnati. Karras called this year’s roster a “grown-man” type of team and has been impressed by recently acquired DT Dexter Lawrence. 

“This is about as grown-man of a team as I’ve ever been a part of,” Karras said, via Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic. “You saw that last period I’m just fighting to the end there. It’s just me and him in the middle. You better bring your f—ing s— going against Dexter Lawrence.”

Joe Burrow also notices Lawrence’s impact on their defensive line.  

“The D-line, certainly, the size difference from last year, is the most glaring thing,” Burrow said. “The pocket was a little different today.”

Bengals G Dalton Risner added that he’s also been impressed by DE Jonathan Allen and DT Tedarrell Slaton.

“Don’t get me wrong, in practice you feel (Lawrence’s) strength,” Risner said. “You feel Jonathan Allen’s experience, his twitchiness. You feel TJ Slaton’s fire. You feel all these guys, but it’s nothing you haven’t felt in your career; but for a practice day in and day out, it’s certainly not the most fun.”

Ravens

Plenty of Ravens players were familiar with new HC Jesse Minter, who was an assistant in Baltimore for several years before his football journey took him elsewhere. Now that he’s back as the head coach, he’s made a favorable early impression. 

“I’ve been very impressed and surprised at how he’s kind of progressed throughout the years,” Ravens CB Marlon Humphrey said via the Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec. “I think when you come from, obviously, Harbaugh, a very alpha-type, leader-type guy, I was interested to see how much different team meetings would be. It’s been really good how Jesse has addressed the room and how he’s addressed just small situations.”

Humphrey shared that Minter’s honesty has impressed him, particularly with how he’s communicated to Humphrey that he hasn’t been living up to the standard with his play on the field in recent practices. 

“I mean, he’ll be honest,” Humphrey said. “That’s the thing: he’s very honest. He has told me I’m trash, and I appreciate that. If I’m trash, I’m trash. I just appreciate honesty. You can tell when a coach is being honest.”

Steelers

The Steelers brought in Patrick Graham as their new defensive coordinator on HC Mike McCarthy‘s coaching staff. Pittsburgh LB Patrick Queen said Graham is installing a lot of different things and is doing a good job of making sure everyone understands what he’s trying to implement. 

“He’s throwing a lot of different things out there, but it’s all stuff that makes sense and all stuff that he’s focused, homing in on the details and making sure everybody understand that this is why we doing it,” Queen said, via SteelersWire. “Just making sure every guy understands their job and what the other guy on doing their job. And just making sure we all understand what’s what everybody on the defense is doing.”

Queen said everyone on their defense seems to be on the same page. 

“Yeah, we good, we confident, you know everything they’ve been going over at OTA’s all the way through now,” Queen said. “Um you know is everything is about detail and stuff. So we all you know feel like we on one page with everything.”

Although Queen said they didn’t need a fresh start from previous HC Mike Tomlin, he thinks the new coaching staff provides a “point of motivation.”

“I didn’t really need a fresh start. You know, anytime something doesn’t go right in the season, you going to be pissed off cuz you’re trying to win,” Queen said. “I think a fresh start is nice, new faces, and it’s kind of a point of motivation to go out there and prove yourself over and over again.”