Bengals

Reporters asked Bengals QB Joe Burrow if he is treating the 2026 season as if it’s “now or never” when it comes to the team winning a championship.

“That’s how I’m treating it, for sure. That’s how I’m treating it. I’m trying to put it out into the world. I’m trying to manifest it,” Burrow said. “I’m trying to show our guys the urgency that I have and that I want us to have as an organization to go and make it happen. You can keep pushing it down the road, or you can talk about it now and say, ‘This is the year.’ And I’m tired of saying, ‘Next year, next year, next year.’ This is it. Life is too short to keep pushing things down the road. I’m trying to instill some urgency and some intensity in everybody to go and be great every day and try to go make it happen.”

“I more so do it with my actions and individual conversations,” Burrow continued. “But, everybody feels it — all the veterans that have come in and have been here feel it and want to go and do it. You’ve got to have a really close-knit team. You’ve got to have a team that trusts each other. You’ve got to have a team that wants to go to war for each other and fight for each other — wants to hang out off the field, wants to play games in the locker room, wants to sit with each other at lunch and have deep conversations. And you have to have great players and great coaches, obviously. But that’s not necessarily — a lot of teams have great players and great coaches; that’s not necessarily what does it. We’re working really hard for it. The urgency is very high in the locker room. You can feel it. It’s palpable. We have to be more consistent on offense. We have to — our standard is so high, but it’s so high because of what we’ve done and what we can do. So, I’m going to continue to push that, and we’re going to keep getting better and see where we’re at Week 1. But I’m so excited for it.”

Browns

The Browns are still in the midst of a quarterback battle between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders. Cleveland HC Todd Monken explained why they didn’t make a move for another quarterback, saying they wanted to give both players a chance.

“We made a decision as an organization, ‘Hey, let’s build the roster. Let’s see where we’re at and then pivot then,’” Monken said, via Ralph Vacchiano of Fox Sports. “That’s why we stuck with the guys that we had. We might as well exhaust every opportunity to see what we have, because it would’ve been a damn shame to not, and (then) someone goes on to play really well (somewhere else). ‘The guy was in our building for God’s sake!’ So let’s at least exhaust that and see where we’re at.”

Browns’ new EDGE Jared Verse enters the third year of his career after being traded by the Rams. Verse thinks they have talented young players on the roster but feels it’s important for them to capitalize on that in 2026. 

“I think the future is very important, but I’m mostly focused on the present before anything else,” Verse said. “I think we’ve got a lot of talent. I think we’ve got a lot of people that can do amazing things. But we need those amazing things today.”

Monken can see their potential to succeed in future years and understands they need to develop their young players and identify a franchise quarterback. 

“Because I see it,” Monken said. “I see the young talent. I see the draft capital we have in the future. I see we’re going to have money. If you didn’t have the young talent, I’d see that. But I see the future. I see how (GM Andrew Berry) does the draft. We have an ownership that is committed to winning, committed to whatever we need to win. Now we’ve just got to do our part, which is develop a young roster and find a quarterback.”

Ravens 

Ravens QB Lamar Jackson is entering the ninth year of his career and is set to play under OC Declan Doyle for the first time. Baltimore WR Zay Flowers said Jackson is great at adjusting to each of their receivers.

“If I am being honest, Lamar can adjust to everybody. He knows everybody is different. Everybody’s play style is different… So, he kind of adjusts to you,” Flowers said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “But at the same time, you can help him by just running. That is all you have to do. Just run.”

Doyle said they are evaluating all of their offensive players and pushing them to improve. 

“It’s really important that we’re evaluating these guys, we’re correcting them and we’re pushing them to get better,” Doyle said. “But a core belief of mine is that players improve, they get better. If they didn’t, then there’d be no reason for us to meet with them or work with them or any of that.”

Ravens HC Jesse Minter thinks Jackson is the “best player in the league” and improves everyone in their offense. 

“Lamar’s the best player in the league,” Minter said. “When he’s out there and he’s obviously really engaged like he is, he makes everybody on the field better. So, he makes the offense better. He makes the defense better for having to defend that type of player. All he has to do is be himself. That’s what he’s proven that he is over the course of time. I do think sometimes when you’re trying to learn new things, it really energizes you because you know that there’s a requirement to get where you want to get between now and the game.”