AFC Notes: Tyler Boyd, Le’Veon Bell, Bengals, Browns, Steelers

Bengals

Bengals HC Zac Taylor said WR Tyler Boyd returned to the team this week after missing voluntary practice. 

“I had forgotten that today was the day he was coming back,” Taylor said, via Jay Morrisson of The Athletic. “I had been made aware last week, and I think I talked to him last Thursday and then just forgot. I didn’t check in on the receiver meeting this morning, so I didn’t see him in there. He got on me quick.”

Boyd said his absence from practice did not have to do with his contract situation and understands players like QB Joe Burrow and WR Tee Higgins need to be taken care of. 

“I know we’ve got to get deals done with important players like Joe and Tee,” Boyd said. “I’m good with money. I just want to see the guys that deserve it get paid. What happens in the future — hopefully, it works out for me. I just feel like I wanted to come around and bring camaraderie. I miss the guys. I was just away spending time with my family, quality time with my daughter. I just felt empty not being around my guys and just being there for them.”

Boyd spoke about suffering a deep thigh bruise he suffered in the AFC Championship game which forced him out. 

“That was probably the hardest thing, to watch and know I couldn’t do (it),” Boyd said. “I was on the bike. I was trying to do everything I could. I was waiting for the painkillers to kick in, but the bruise was just so deep. Every time I started running, I wasn’t at least 80 percent, so I didn’t want to hurt it more or slow the team down.”

Browns

Browns DC Jim Schwartz said it is too early into their offseason program to judge how their defense is molding together. 

“It’s too soon to tell. It’s too soon to really get a judge of where we are when you’re not full speed. There’s things that you can do with walkthroughs. There’s things you can do, tempo and things like that. But to really play defense, you need to be physical. That’s the number one thing. You need to be physical and we can’t do that now. So it’s really hard to say where we are. We’re making progress on schemes and communication. We were pretty crappy early on. We needed a little kick in the butt to get going a little bit today. But communication, getting some things under our feet. We’re getting a little bit better there, but the road will hit the rubber when training camp comes and we can play with toughness and effort and physicality,” said Schwarz, via the team’s official site. 

Schwarz said he didn’t have any input on players for their defensive line rotation with HC Kevin Stefanski and GM Andrew Berry but had communication on whether he felt players fit their system. 

“Those decisions are Andrew Berry’s and Kevin Stefanski’s decisions to make. But the point of it is, there is communication. There is communication of how players are going to be used right. And what’s going to be asked of them and does this player fit? What do you think? Things like that. But final determination–like I said before, this is Andrew and Kevin’s team. It’s my job to coach the guys that they give us. But I’m really happy with the guys up front. The additions they’ve made, I think they fit us really well. I think we got a lot of interchangeable spots. We’ll play a lot of guys up front, right? We’re not just going to play four guys. We’ll roll through eight, maybe even nine guys at times, trying to keep guys fresh and keep them throwing 100 mph fastballs. You guys will get tired of my baseball analogies. A lot of d-line is a lot like throwing relief in major leagues now, right? Like these guys coming in from the pen, throwing 100, 101. I watched that guy from the Guardians last night and the guy from the Orioles last night. Both of them are throwing over 100. Unless you’re Nolan Ryan, you can’t do that stuff for seven, eight innings. And same thing with d-line. The tempo that we want those guys to play, we want to need to rotate fresh troops in. Offensive lines don’t sub, but we can. We can keep the pressure on those guys and we can play to a high standard with that depth. And that’s an important part of what we do.”

Steelers

Former Steelers RB Le’Veon Bell is now saying that he wants to retire as a member of the team that drafted him, but adds that he isn’t ready to officially retire and thinks he can still take a few snaps.

“I never officially retired,” Bell said, via the Steel Here Podcast. “Before I do that, I may be like, hey, let me get a couple of carries in the preseason so I can show y’all something.”