Bengals

• Bengals QB Joe Flacco will not practice on Wednesday, HC Zac Taylor said. Flacco will have a 50-50 shot of playing on Sunday against the Bears. (Ben Baby)
• Bengals LB Logan Wilson missed Wednesday’s practice with a calf injury he sustained during kickoff coverage in last week’s game against the Jets. The injury could impact his status for Sunday’s game against the Bears. (Baby)

Browns

• Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated points out that several big college programs are looking for new head coaches, including LSU, Texas and Penn State. Breer writes that he could imagine Browns OC Tommy Rees being researched by those schools. 

Steelers

The Steelers’ recent 35-25 loss to the Packers marked the fourth time they’ve allowed more than 30 points this season. Pittsburgh HC Mike Tomlin defended DC Teryl Austin following Week 8’s game. 

“I’ve known Teryl a long time,” Tomlin said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN. “He’s very capable. He’s very thorough. I’ve largely been pleased with his work, but certainly he and I are not pleased with where we are right now from a defensive unit perspective, and so we’re just going to keep working.”

Tomlin said he is not considering taking over defensive playcalling duties. 

“That’s not on the table as we sit here today,” Tomlin said. “We just got to keep doing what we’re doing and do it better.”

Tomlin pointed out that the season is still young and they have a lot of time to turn things around. 

“We make no excuses about how or why we fall short,” Tomlin said. “Our job is to perform at a high level, and we haven’t done that. … Seven games or whatever doesn’t make a season. We certainly got more in front of us and more opportunities to write our story, whether it’s individuals, whether it’s a component of our team or whether it’s our team in general. I think that’s our general mindset.”

• Steelers QB Aaron Rodgers on WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who worked out for the team this week: “I love MVS. … I think MVS wants to be on an active roster, so if there wasn’t an opportunity here for that, then I guess he’s waiting for something else.” (Brooke Pryor)
• The Patriots are paying most of the $5.4 million that’s left of S Kyle Dugger’s original base of $9.75M (plus $1M in per-game roster bonuses) to complete the trade to the Steelers. The final two contract years have been wiped out. He’ll be a free agent after 2025. (Ian Rapoport)

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