Bengals

Bengals TE Tanner Hudson enters the ninth year of his career and his fourth season in Cincinnati. Hudson said he keeps the same mentality as when he was an undrafted free agent coming out of Southern Arkansas and is always looking to earn a role. 

“I’ve had that mentality since I got into the league,” Hudson said, via Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic. “I knew when I came in as an undrafted free agent, no signing bonus: As long as I want to be in the NFL, it’s going to be a grind. I have to earn it every single day. I know my role here. I know what I can do. That doesn’t mean that it is just given to me. I have to go show I deserve the role and deserve the reps that I get.”

Hudson feels like he has a great relationship with Joe Burrow and the other Bengals quarterbacks. 

“I feel like I have a great relationship with everybody here in this building, quarterbacks especially,” Hudson said. “I’m just trying to come in and do my job, do what I can for what feels like is going to be an incredible team this year, offense and defense. Just trying to do my part.”

• Burrow was asked if 2026 is a now-or-never year for them to win a Super Bowl: “That’s how I’m treating it.” (Ben Baby)

Browns

Browns DT Mason Graham is hoping to play a bigger role in the team’s pass rush after the fifth overall pick had just half a sack in his rookie season.

“I feel like I’m one of the guys that this team’s going to be able to count on, so I have to go out there every day and prove that just to show all the other guys that they’re just going to follow suit,” Graham said via the team website. “So, I feel like it all starts with all four of us that are out there with the first group and then everyone else follows, and we believe everyone should be playing the same level.”

The absence of DE Myles Garrett could help him achieve that goal, with DL coach Jacques Cesaire and HC Todd Monken commenting on where Graham stands as a player.

“He just understands football, understands formations and what the offense is trying to do,” Cesaire said. “He’s trying to help everybody out as much as he can, and he gets down and he starts rolling. It’s been really cool to see that maturation of him.”

“Well, I mean, talk about ball get off — what I didn’t know is, I always saw him as maybe an undersized inside guy with great ball get off that’s disruptive,” Monken said of Graham. “What he is, is that; but in terms of the D-line, in terms of calls and anticipation of what he’s going to see, communication, quarterback, verbal, O-line, in terms of the calls, I see it every day. He’s not only that, but he’s more, because he really understands football and he anticipates what offenses are trying to do to him.”

Ravens

The Ravens embark on the 2026 season with a new offensive system under OC Declan Doyle. Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson called Doyle’s scheme a “balanced” offense and thinks it will help them read defenses more effectively. 

“With this balanced type of offense, I feel like it will help us out a lot — identifying the defense, really keeping the defense on their toes,” Jackson said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. 

Doyle’s offense will have Jackson line up under center more often than he’s previously done throughout his career. Doyle says that Jackson allows them to play under center, in the shotgun, and in the pistol. 

“You would never notice that he hasn’t been under there that much,” Doyle said. “He has the ability to really do all three: He can be under [center], he can be in the pistol, [and] he can be in shotgun. There’s a lot of versatility in his game. You want to be able to mix all those things and make the defense have to deal with the multiplicity of those sets as [much as] you can. He provides us a lot of value in his ability to go under center and run some of the offense that way.”

Doyle said they are emphasizing their tempo when they break the huddle and cadence. 

“Lamar is a very quick learner when you start working with him, and so I have been happy with what we have done,” Doyle said. “We are trying to kind of keep the defense honest, and yet, at the same point in time, there are times where cadence might provide an advantage to be able to try to create a big play. So, it all kind of ties together, but there is certainly an emphasis on the tempo in which we break the huddle [and] the cadence we use. That stuff is all a huge piece to what happens post-snap.”