Bengals

Bengals DE Cashius Howell is five games into his rookie season after being a second-round pick out of Texas A&M. Howell said his first impression of the NFL is that it requires a lot of film study to understand their complex schemes. 

“First impressions in the league, obviously, the talent has increased a major bit, and schemes. I feel like teams really scheme up the defense, and just having more complex schemes that you as a player have to watch more film on to be able to understand what you’re looking at. That’s kind of what I took from the first five games is that you have to really be intentional with your film watching. Be intentional with reading your keys whenever you’re actually playing the game,” Howell said, via Geoff Hobson of the team’s site. 

Howell is still seeking her first career sack and has recorded three tackles thus far. Howell said he is pleased with the learning experience and understands the steps he needs to take to develop. 

“I’m definitely happy with the things that I’ve done up to this point, but obviously, like I said, there’s a next step to be taken, and I feel like that comes with watching film, just doing the extra things that’ll just allow you to play faster, Just get a key on a snap to where you can just get off and play faster, get on the rush, get on the edge faster, and I just feel like if I continue to keep staying down and continue to keep trying to do the best that I can and do the most that I can to help me see the defense and see the offense, then I feel like it’ll play out in my favor,” Howell said. 

Regarding their Week 5 win over the Dolphins, Howell said they wanted to keep QB Malik Willis in the pocket and felt they did a good job containing him. 

“Going into that game, you just wanted to make sure he threw from the pocket and threw from the well. Obviously, a couple of rush lanes got messed up a few times, but for the most part I feel like we were able to contain him and allow for the defense to play (well) and allow for the team to go get the win,” Howell said. 

Browns

Browns QB Deshaun Watson was sacked eight times in their Week 5 loss to the Jets. Cleveland HC Todd Monken said their rushing attack struggled to put the offense in good positions, which is why they gave up so many sacks. 

“You’re going to put yourself in that position when you can’t run the football,” Monken said. “We weren’t able to run the football [Sunday], and we were behind the sticks the whole day, and we made a few plays, some get back on track and some third downs that gave us a chance, but we were never comfortable calling it or playing, and that’s not a recipe for success. Everybody knows that, but we got to be able to run the football to control the game. It starts up front, starts with the way we call it and the way we scheme it.”

Monken feels like their rushing offense “made some strides” in Week 4 against the Steelers, but they took a step back against the Jets. 

“It’s never just one thing,” Monken said. “It’s scheming. It’s us running off the football. It’s executing at a much higher level than we are right now. And until we do that, we will struggle. And it really wasn’t that way at Pittsburgh [in Week 4]. I felt like we had made some strides, and the Jets have a good front, and we just didn’t execute and certainly didn’t coach it well enough.”

As for the offense’s tendency to play predominantly out of the shotgun, Monken said they can pivot their approach, and calling runs from shotgun formations isn’t set in stone. 

“There’s a little of everything that goes with it,” Monken said. “I mean, certainly we’re capable of pivoting what we feel like is best for us moving forward. There’s more to it than just that. But we were playing Tampa four weeks ago, we were under center, and they were pressuring us, and then we got in the gun and we had some success, and we were running it and we’re throwing it, we’re getting the ball out of his hands. And each week you’re pivoting. You want to have enough in your offense to not be pigeonholed as to one way to be able to move the football. And it’s not in stone, it’s in sand. And we’re going to do what we feel like we need to do, even moving forward. Did we see that coming the other day? No. But that’s what you do. You learn from it, you own it, you fight like hell to fix it, and you move on.”

• ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler says Watson has played well enough to earn more runway as a starter, and benching isn’t necessarily imminent.

Steelers

Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth has 19 receptions on 26 targets for 169 yards and four touchdowns. Freiermuth said he’s becoming a “focal point of the offense” and noticed early on how QB Aaron Rodgers and HC Mike McCarthy were playing to his strengths.

“Yeah I definitely see myself as more of a focal point of the offense. Definitely probably OTAs and camp I started to getting to kinda that Aaron and Coach McCarthy were going to use my strengths. And I just feel like it was kind of a natural process trying to lean on the tight end room with me and Darnell [Washington] throughout the camp and OTAs,” Freiermuth said, via SteelersWire.