AFC Notes: Joe Burrow, Zay Flowers, Bengals, Browns, Ravens

Bengals

Bengals OC Brian Callahan expressed confidence in QB Joe Burrow‘s recovery and believes he’s on the right track.

“To my eyes, he looks like he is progressing the way he’s supposed to,” Callahan said, via Sports Illustrated. “I don’t see him a lot doing things. I probably see him as much as you guys do. So I don’t go watch his rehab or anything like that, but I feel good about everything I’ve heard and seen so far.”

Callahan doesn’t believe that it’ll take Burrow long to get back into a rhythm once he’s full speed.

“He’s still able to throw to some degree,” Callahan said. “So I don’t think that part is going to be all that difficult for him. Take a couple of days just getting back into rhythm with the receivers, but these guys have played so much football together that doesn’t concern me so much and he’s not trying to put weight on like he was last year or anything like that. He’s in good shape, so I don’t think it would take him very long.”

• Bengals HC Zac Taylor said there is no cause for concern about Burrow following his recent calf injury in practice: “He looks great. Physically walking around, he looks as good as he’s ever looked,” via Ian Rapoport. 

Browns

Browns CB Greg Newsome said DC Jim Schwartz has “high expectations” for their defense and they are working to become the NFL’s “best defense.” 

“He has high expectations for us,” Newsome said, via Scott Petrak of BrownsZone. “He coaches us hard, but that’s because he has high expectations. So when we set a standard for us as players and we’re not being to that standard, we expect our coaches to push us harder and harder. And with him, he’s going to coach us hard because he doesn’t think we should be a top-10 defense or a top-eight defense. We’re trying to be the best defense, so we’re going to hold ourselves to that standard and he’s going to push us every single day.”

Browns CBs coach Brandon Lynch said Schwartz is looking to bring out their defense’s toughness, effort, and passion. 

“Really that’s one of Coach Schwartz’s biggest things with our toughness, our effort and our passion,” Lynch said. “Our guys really have that internal camaraderie amongst each other.”

Newsom points out how Schwartz has improved the camaraderie of their defensive players by having them do more off-field activities together. 

“I feel like we’ve always had a lot of talent, but I just feel like what we do outside of the building, always together, literally every single day guys are doing stuff together, getting food together,” Newsome said. “So I just think that camaraderie that we have, not only in the secondary, around the whole, entire defense and the whole team, is just amazing. So I think it is definitely showing on the field.”

Ravens

Veteran Ravens QB Josh Johnson has worked with first-round WR Zay Flowers and told reporters that he has the talent to have an exciting future.

“Zay is different,” Johnson said, via NFL.com. “To see him do what you all see every day — we were able to get the ball in his hands early. He’s a very exciting player, and his moves are wild, and it’s like that every day. So automatically, it injects life into the whole team to see him go out there and just unleash his special talent. I’m excited for the young fella.”