Bengals

Bengals WR Andrei Iosivas was placed on injured reserve after suffering torn ligaments in his thumb. Cincinnati HC Zac Taylor confirmed it won’t be a “season-long issue” for Iosivas, and they need their other receivers to step up in his absence. 

“It’s a weeks’ issue, not a season-long issue. It will definitely be the IR window, plus maybe a little bit more,” Taylor said, via Geoff Hobson of the team’s site. “We’ll be able to manage through it. Several guys that can step up. Whether it’s in the receiver room, the tight end room. There’s a lot ways for us to fill that.”

As for Cincinnati’s Week 3 matchup against the Steelers, Pitcher said it is going to be strange going up against a Mike Tomlin-less Pittsburgh. 

“It’s going to be odd going to that stadium and looking at that sideline and not seeing Mike Tomlin,” Pitcher said. “I’ve got all the respect in the world for Mike Tomlin and what he accomplished there. But Mike Tomlin never played a down there. The guys that play are still there. And they’re still pretty damn good. Patrick’s been calling defenses in this league for a long time at a lot of different places. I’ve always admired him and his scheme. I think he’s a really intelligent guy who is player-centric in terms of what he’s going to choose to do … His defenses have looked different throughout the years, but they’re always very challenging.”

Ravens

The Ravens lost 24-17 to the Saints in Week 2, when a final hurl from Lamar Jackson to WR Rashod Bateman resulted in an interception. Bateman said there wasn’t any miscommunication on their last play, but they have “a lot of cleanup to do.”

“No miscommunication at all,” Bateman said, via Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic. “Ran the right route, looked up, the ball was what it was. It’s just one of those plays that you look at and you can’t get it back. Lamar played well. I think we all played well. Just a lot of cleanup to do.”

Jackson reflected on the play, saying Bateman ran the correct route and Saints S Julian Blackmon made a good play.

“He ran his route, man,” Jackson said. “(Blackmon) just made a play. That’s all it is.”

Ravens HC Jesse Minter said they still have “a lot of confidence” in Bateman and TE Mark Andrews. 

“We have a lot of confidence in ‘Bate’ and I felt like he took it upon himself to kind of know that we were missing a key guy and that he was going to have some opportunities,” Minter said. “He ran some really good routes and made some nice plays. I thought Mark [Andrews] did the same thing. Again, kind of making a lot of the classic Mark type of plays [with] some key third-down conversions [and] things like that. So, when a guy is out, you need other guys to sort of step up and answer the bell, and I thought both those guys did that overall.”

• Jackson on whether he has as much freedom as in the past to change plays at the line of scrimmage: “We’re still working with our new system as well. But yeah, eventually as the season goes on, it’s going to get back to that old me making things happen at the line of scrimmage.” (Jamsion Hensley)
• Per NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, Ravens DT Nnamdi Madubuike “sounds like he’s on track” to make his season debut in Week 3 in Brazil after being a full participant in Wednesday’s practice. 

Steelers

The Steelers’ offensive line struggled in its 20-3 loss to the Patriots in Week 2, allowing four sacks. Pittsburgh HC Mike McCarthy admitted that changing the line through their offseason program hurt their protection at the start of the season. 

“In hindsight you go back and you look how many days did we line up with the same offensive line? We worked a lot of different combinations,” McCarthy said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “No excuses, but they need continuity. They need reps, they need consistency. So the consistency will come through the common concepts. … Our consistency starting up front, we need to give our guys more laps, more time on task and make sure we’re asking them to do things that they got plenty of reps in.”

Pittsburgh has yet to eclipse the 300-yard mark through the first two weeks of the season. Pittsburgh LT Troy Fautanu thinks something has to change and isn’t sure what the issue is. 

“Something’s got to change,” Fautanu said. “I don’t know if it’s that we’re not working hard enough as an offense or we’re not working hard enough as an O-line. Just not connecting well with each other.”

Steelers OC Brian Angelichio said their communication and consistency need to be better.

“We need more consistency,” Angelichio said. “I don’t know if there’s one particular thing to point to, just seems like it moved around a little bit, but I think communication’s got to be better and just consistency of what we’re trying to get done.”

• Steelers HC Mike McCarthy on CB Joey Porter Jr.’s status: “Joey’s scheduled to do some more today, so we’ll see how that goes. But I thought he had quality work yesterday. He hit the target on what was planned for him.” (Nick Farabaugh)