Katherine Terrell, ESPN Staff Writer 6y

Green and Brown clash in style, but blend in team importance

CINCINNATI -- Wide receivers A.J. Green and Antonio Brown couldn’t be more different in terms of personality, but their importance to the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively, is undeniable.

The star receivers could be the key to winning the game at Heinz Field on Sunday.

Green is quiet, mostly stays out of the spotlight and rarely shows emotion. Eventually, defenders "just stop talking" to him on the field because he never bothers to respond.

“That’s who I am,” Green said. “I am here to play football. I am not here to get in an arguing match and fight on the field. No need. I need all the energy I can to go out and make plays.”

One of the few times Green made a scene after scoring was in 2015, when Andy Dalton went down for the season with a broken thumb. Green caught a touchdown pass from backup AJ McCarron and proceeded to punt the football into the stands. Green is still embarrassed about it.

“Oh yeah, that was terrible. That was terrible,” he said sheepishly. “I don’t know what was going through my mind on that one.”

Brown, on the other hand, has a flair for the dramatic. He routinely comes up with touchdown dances and embraces the attention that comes with the position. His teammate Vince Williams joked on his Twitter account this week that he doesn’t even know what Brown is like away from cameras.

Green and Brown's different styles have helped make them into the receivers they are today. Coming into this week, Brown was leading the NFL with 700 receiving yards, and Green was second with 504. Green has three receiving touchdowns to Brown’s two.

“Great receiver, guy I really respect,” Green said. “He’s a hell of a player…

“Big Ben [Roethlisberger] and Antonio have a great relationship, they know each other very well. When plays break down, I feel they are the best with the scramble drill and getting open. That’s it. Ben is a Hall of Fame quarterback and Antonio is going to be a Hall of Fame receiver. They have a great relationship and great chemistry.”

For as good as Brown has been -- he already has four 100-yard receiving games this season -- that success hasn’t come easily against the Bengals. Brown has two regular-season 100-yard games against the Bengals in 13 tries, both of which came in 2014.

Brown’s teams are 10-3 against Cincinnati in the regular season, but the Bengals have done a relatively sound job over the years of keeping him contained. That’s not as simple as simple bracketing him in coverage.

“They've got other guys that can hurt you,” said Bengals defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. “They're all good receivers. [Le’Veon Bell] is a good receiver out of the backfield, so you try to plan for a couple different things. But obviously he's their main targeted guy, so we understand that.”

Brown has 69 career catches for 972 yards and four touchdowns against the Bengals, but has only 97 combined yards and no touchdowns in their past two meetings.

“That’s the only number I like,” said Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick, who is friends with Brown off the field and respects him immensely. “I tip my hat off to my safeties because as a corner, I don’t feel like you can slow down those guys without your safeties playing great. He’s good, man. You can man up on him all day and at some point he’s going to beat you. You’ve got to have somebody like George [Iloka], Shawn [Williams] that plays the position pretty well.”

Added Steelers coach Mike Tomlin: “People are continually evolving in the way they work to minimize [Brown's] game. The older he gets, I think that’s one of the interesting things about his growth and development. He’s really become cognizant of the things that people do to minimize him, how people play him differently, and he’s trying to grow and evolve to combat some of those things.”

Green has 71 catches for 975 yards and 6 touchdowns in 11 regular-season games against the Steelers.

Green doesn’t expect he’ll have a particular cornerback shadowing him this game, as the Steelers tend to stay on their sides.

“They’ve got two great corners. They play a lot of zone,” Green said. “Cover 3. They don’t need to.”

But he’s ready for the Steelers to roll extra coverage his way. The Steelers will be keying in on Green as they usually do, especially with Bengals receivers Tyler Boyd and John Ross likely out.

It’s not a coincidence that the Bengals have shown a marked improvement this season when Green has caught a touchdown pass after he went scoreless the first two weeks. If a team can take Green out of the game, its chances of winning go up dramatically.

He’s ready for it.

“Every defense's game plan is to take me away,” he said. “It's nothing I've never seen before.”

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