AFC Notes: Nelson Agholor, Elijah Moore, Bengals, Browns, Ravens

Bengals

Bengals veteran safeties Nick Scott and Mike Thomas both have praise for third-round S Jordan Battle, who played a big role at Alabama during his college career.

“J.B. is going to be fine,” Scott said, according to Geoff Hobson. “He’s going to be a guy that can contribute right away. It’s pretty evident he’s there mentally. He understands concepts and everything like that and he’s physical enough … I can’t stress enough how good of an understanding he has of the things going on.”

“You can tell he’s definitely polished. He was, what, a four-year starter at Alabama?” Thomas said. “He looks good out there. We’re all trying to learn from each other. He’s not shying away from opportunities. You like to see confidence out of the young guys.”

Browns

Browns WR coach Chad O’Shea spoke at length about WR Elijah Moore and what he’s brought to the team so far. 

“He’s been really a fun guy to coach and to scheme for because of his ability to play in a lot of different positions,” O’Shea said of Moore, via Scott Petrak of BrownsZone.com. “He has a great skill set physically, but the thing that’s been most impressive about Elijah is his ability to function mentally across all the spots we’ve put him. We’ve asked a lot of him, we’ve put a lot of responsibility on him. So he increases his value for us if he increases his role and he’s certainly played in a multiple-role position.”

“He has great athleticism, both short-area athleticism and his ability to run and have great speed,” O’Shea added. “And the thing that I’ve been most impressed with him physically is his ability to catch the ball. He has exceptional ball skills and very strong hands, so as well as Deshaun throws the ball and as well as Deshaun throws the ball down the field, Elijah’s able to track the ball at all levels of the offense. He can track the ball in that short area and take a ball and catch and run. He can get behind the defense and track the deep ball very well and especially at his size, being a smaller receiver, he really plays big in my opinion. So it fits really well with our quarterback.”

Cleveland added quite a bit at receiver this offseason along with Moore, including signing veteran WR Marquise Goodwin and drafting third-round WR Cedric Tillman. 

“It’s been great to add the pieces that we have at receiver,” O’Shea continued. “They have been so impressive this spring and their ability to work with each other has been great. They’re really coming in as accomplished players. Elijah’s done a great job of coming in, learning the offense, Marquise, great job of coming in, learning the offense. They can run, they can get open, they can catch the ball, so it’s been a lot of fun to see them kind of integrate with our other players and see them just kind of fit right in.”

Ravens

• The Athletic’s Jeff Zrebiec lists Ravens WR Nelson Agholor as one of the team’s offseason standouts, noting he got a lot of work with other receivers out and looked competent. He points out Agholor’s salary likely makes him a roster lock even if there’s stiff competition for targets on the team’s receiver depth chart right now. 
• Zrebiec adds Ravens sixth-round OL Malaesala Aumavae-Laulu spent the week of minicamp getting first-team reps at left guard and Ravens HC John Harbaugh wasn’t just offering coachspeak when he said he was a contender to start. 
• The flip side of that is Zrebiec points out the staff was moving OL Ben Cleveland around to different spots on the line and he seems to have lost ground in the competition at left guard. 
• Zrebiec mentions the Ravens explored upgrading their backup quarterback spot this offseason fairly extensively and that could bode poorly for QB Tyler Huntley this preseason, particularly because his $2.6 million salary under the restricted tender isn’t guaranteed.