AFC Notes: Pat Freiermuth, Zac Taylor, Bengals, Browns, Steelers

Bengals

Bengals HC Zac Taylor explained the lack of attempts and chances for rookie RB Chase Brown.

“We only have 40 plays. You’re going to look at a lot of them in the two-minute and third downs. At the end of the day, you have to look at normal-down plays from the past. We tried to do our best to keep some balance there but there wasn’t a lot of opportunities in this game,” Taylor said, via Bengals.com. “This has nothing to do with Joe Mixon. This is the entirety of the unit coming together. Don’t make this about one person. It’s not like there was missed opportunities there from what I could see. He continues to run hard and he’s given us what we needed this season.”

• Taylor on the team’s inability to run the ball: “We’ve got do a better job of managing the drives as we go and put ourselves in a little bit more advantageous situations. If you can’t put yourself in a situation where you call more runs and you’re not at second and long, you get more runs off.” (Kelsey Conway)

Browns

• Browns S Rodney McLeod was fined $7,319 for unnecessary roughness.

Steelers

Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth highlighted the team’s offense on Sunday in their win over the Bengals, drawing praise from QB Kenny Pickett.

“I just hopefully brought some good luck [with me],” Freiermuth said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “I was talking to my family over Thanksgiving. I was like, hopefully, this is the one that I can build on. Confidence, man. Connecting on that first play, on an explosive, it made everyone believe.”

“It’s been tough, man,” Freiermuth said of his injuries this season. “Obviously balancing some injuries. Never really was healthy since Week 1, taking that hit to the chest. That’s what game planning’s for. And that’s why we have the two players on the outside. If they doubled me on the inside, you got the two outside guys, and if they doubled two outside guys, you got me inside. So it’s good to have us at full health.”

“Pat had an unbelievable game,” Pickett added. “Really happy for him battling back off an injured hamstring, which isn’t easy, so it’s great to have 88 out there. I was kind of just playing off of what they were showing defensively. Felt like they were showing a lot of middle-field open coverages where we needed Pat to step up and be big for us, which he was. Had him in some one-on-one routes too to move the chains.” The tight ends weren’t just more involved because of the change in play callers. A big part, Heyward said, was the looks the Bengals were giving them and the execution by the Steelers to take advantage of them.”