AFC Notes: Jimmy Haslam, Ronnie Stanley, Bengals, Browns, Steelers

Bengals

The Bengals elected to re-sign WRs Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins to lucrative extensions this offseason. Mike Sando of The Athletic cites an anonymous executive who thinks they should’ve traded Higgins after using the franchise tag on him while signing Trey Hendrickson to a new deal. 

“They definitely needed to retain Chase, and then Higgins should have been a tag-and-trade candidate because you need the draft capital and you have to rebuild your defense,” an executive said. “You could have made Trey Hendrickson happy (with a new deal) and have a draft pick if you moved on from Higgins.”

Another executive feels Cincinnati should’ve put more focus on improving the offensive and defensive lines instead of bringing back Higgins. 

“The thought of keeping their quarterback happy is good,” the executive said. “But how can you build around him to get him where he needs to go? I’m going to go with fronts and defense over skill, especially when you already have one of the highest-paid receivers. To sign another one (Higgins) is interesting to me.”

Although one executive says the Bengals landed a “nice bargain” in OL Lucas Patrick, he’s coming from a different type of system with the Saints. 

“They got a nice bargain signing with Lucas Patrick, but he just played his best football with Klint Kubiak’s system in New Orleans, which is nothing like the pure dropback game in Cincy, where they try to throw the ball all over the yard.”

Browns

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam said the team will not force the issue to draft a quarterback second overall.

“If you had the No. 1 pick, you could say, ‘OK, we know what we’re going to do,‘” Haslam said, via Clevleand.com. “When you’re No. 2, you don’t control your own destiny. I think Andrew told you all last night, he did not see us trading up. So it would be great if we could get the quarterback, but we’re not going to force it. We’re going to be patient, and we’re going to try to accumulate as many really good football players as we can.”

Haslam admitted that he was perplexed when GM Andrew Berry said the team likely won’t trade up to the first-overall pick.

“I asked him the same thing,” Haslam said. “We had dinner together last night, and he just said, I don’t really see that happening.”

Haslam said he won’t hold it against Berry and HC Kevin Stefanski if the team isn’t able to figure out the quarterback position this year.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “We have high confidence. Andrew needs to do better in personnel, Kevin needs to better at coaching, but we have high confidence in those two guys. We really do.”

Haslam added that QB Kenny Pickett, who was acquired this offseason in a trade with Philadelphia, is squarely in the conversation to be the team’s starter.

“If they feel good about it, we do,” he said. “He’s had a winning record as a starter, and he took a team to the playoffs. So, his first year as a rookie, he looked really good. We’re going to do everything we can to put him in a position to do well with us. We have not met Kenny yet, so we look forward to doing so in two or three weeks.”

Ravens 

The Ravens re-signed OT Ronnie Stanley to a three-year, $60 million extension while allowing free agents G Patrick Mekari and CB Brandon Stephens to sign with new teams on the open market. One anonymous executive thinks Baltimore made good decisions to limit changes this offseason. 

“They went through a lot of change last offseason,” the executive said, via Mike Sando of The Athletic. “If they could minimize change this offseason, that is probably a plus. And it looks like they did that.”

Another executive praised them for retaining Stanley but doesn’t feel signing WR DeAndre Hopkins was an outstanding move. 

“I like the fact that they kept their guy (Stanley),” the executive said. “He’s had some injuries, but he still is a good player. D-Hop, that doesn’t do anything for me. He’s just a name at this point.”

One more executive points out that Baltimore was in the market for an interior offensive lineman and still needs to address the position after losing Mekari. The executive also mentioned that the Ravens have “looming” decisions on DT Travis Jones and OLB Odafe Oweh. 

“They were in on a lot of interior O-linemen in free agency, so that is going to be a need for them, because they lost Mekari,” the executive said. “Defensively, they could have some decisions looming with Travis Jones and (Odafe) Oweh coming up for extensions. They have a little bit of a management situation with those guys.”