3 players the Pittsburgh Steelers gave up on way too soon

3. Le’Veon Bell, Running Back

The Pittsburgh Steelers landed Le’Veon Bell in the second round of the 2013 NFL Draft out of Michigan State.

Have we mentioned the Steelers are really good at drafting offensive skill players?

The Steelers got Bell in the fold in 2013 and it took him very little time to become an every-down threat. He had almost 1,300 yards from scrimmage in his rookie year with the Steelers, followed by a four-year stretch of time where he averaged over 2,300 yards from scrimmage and 12 touchdowns per 17 games played.

Unfortunately, a contract dispute led to Bell sitting out the entire 2018 NFL season before he signed with the New York Jets in free agency in 2019.

We all know how the rest of the story has gone from that point on. Le’Veon Bell was no longer the dominant force we once saw in Pittsburgh. By the time he’d gotten to the Jets, he wasn’t the same guy at all. Did he have some issues off the field that perhaps caused the Steelers to draw a hard line in the sand?

Absolutely.

Did the Steelers give up on Bell too soon? Absolutely. This is one of those situations where both sides should have understood how badly they needed each other. The Steelers were still contenders in 2018. They narrowly missed the playoffs that year with a 9-6-1 record as the Ravens took the division at 10-6.

The contract issue in 2018 really turned out to be a bump in the road that Bell couldn’t recover from as a player. He was on a trajectory to be one of the league’s most dominant featured backs possibly ever.