AFC Notes: KC Concepcion, Will Howard, Bengals, Browns, Steelers

Bengals

Bengals WR Andrei Iosivas said he isn’t focusing on the outside noise as he enters a contract season.

I’m always gonna be a team player and care about the team and how I perform, but I don’t care about anything else,” he said, via Sports Illustrated. “You can’t care about everybody all of the time. You just can’t. It’s not letting outside noise get to me and letting circumstances get to me. Whatever circumstance I’m in, I’m gonna do it and play the ball that I know how to play. I know I’m a great player, so I’m not letting people’s opinions or things in the building irritate me.”

Iosivas said he received hate messages after a couple of bad games.

I had those drops in those games and people were telling me to kill myself,” he said. “I’ve never had that kind of stuff happen to me before. It got in my head a little bit when your DMs are flooded with people telling you to kill yourself.

  • Bengals OC Dan Pitcher will participate in the NFL’s coaching and front office accelerator program at the owners meetings in Orlando this week, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.

Browns

Browns HC Todd Monken told reporters that he has been finding comparisons between first-round WR KC Concepcion and Ravens WR Zay Flowers, whom Monken coached during his time in Baltimore.

“There are some traits that are similar to [Flowers],” Monken said, via Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN. “But I love when people spoke about KC, it reminded me of Zay in that, in terms of how he practiced, what he brings in every day. And if you’re looking for that comparison, that I can compare, I believe he’s going to bring that like Zay did.”

“He’s dynamic,” Browns GM Andrew Berry said of Concepcion. “He’s an outstanding separator, really good with the ball in his hands. Honestly, probably the best punt returner in this class. I know that gets talked about, but he has natural dexterity. It’s nothing extreme or nothing out of, I guess it’s not an outlier, relative to other receivers in the draft class. I know that’s been the primary talking point, but we’re comfortable with KC’s hands. I do think there are some similarities [to Flowers ] in terms of movement skills, the twitch. Honestly, some of the questions regarding the hands coming out, I think the one thing that maybe gets a little bit lost is KC is a much bigger player than Zay, but I think there is some overlap in the characteristics. If we get a player who’s comparable to Zay Flowers when we’re sitting here from three years, we’ll be elated.”

Steelers

Steelers QB Will Howard said that he felt he could’ve gone during Day 2 of the draft if Browns QB Shedeur Sanders hadn’t fallen to the fifth round.

I thought there was a chance that I was going to go Friday,” Howard said, via Steelers Wire. “I was hearing that. I remember talking with some of the guys at the Steelers, and it was really that whole Shedeur situation, kinda. Him sliding really hurt a lot of the other quarterbacks in our class. Just because he was ranked a little higher, so nobody wanted to take guys like me, or Riley Leonard, or Kyle McCord, Quinn Ewers. All of us — you think Riley, me, Kyle, Quinn — were six-six, six-seven. We were all like late-late picks.

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