NFL Pittsburgh Steelers

Le’Veon Bell’s Absence Exposed Pittsburgh Steelers’ Greatest Weaknesses

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Le'Veon Bell, Pittsburgh Steelers

Jason Bridge-USA TODAY Sports

Next man up: it’s a mentality Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin has preached since the first day he donned a stylish Steelers cap. For a couple of years, the saying felt more like a cop out than a mantra as Steeler Nation grew weary of seeing fourth-string offensive lineman enter the game and block about as well as a traffic cone caught in a hurricane.

On Saturday night, though, the Steel City felt good about its apparent return to a running-back-by-committee style, at least for one game. Le’Veon Bell could not rehab a hyperextended knee in time for kickoff, leaving rookies Josh Harris and Dri Archer, plus fresh signee Ben Tate, to run the rock.

The result was an unmitigated disaster. The trio combined for 73 total yards, both rushing and receiving, on 22 combined touches. Or, to put it another way, about the equivalent of a quiet first half for Bell all by himself. Tate’s tenure with the Steelers has likely ended as abruptly as it began.

The journeyman backup also added a fumble to his stat sheet, fortuitously recovered by the resourceful Antonio Brown, and a tipped pass that led to the game-icing pick that was even more fortuitously secured by Terrell Suggs, who never fails to take his play to another level against Pittsburgh.

Before the game, those looking to downplay Bell’s significance pointed to his stats against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 9. Bell accounted for only 58 yards that day, but his impact was felt all game. It was clear that the Ravens had done their homework on Bell and his unique tippy-toe running style. They refused to overcommit on running plays, instead allowing Bell to come to them.

Of course, that strategy fell apart when Baltimore, too concerned with respecting the run, allowed Ben Roethlisberger to drop six touchdowns on their defense without so much as a knockdown.

With Bell on the sidelines, Pittsburgh’s running game was again vanilla and familiar to the Ravens’ veterans. As the game got progressively out of hand, the pass rush was let loose via some wild defensive looks and aggressive block shedding. Without his last line of defense by his side, Big Ben had no answer for Baltimore’s exotic blitzes.

So great is Bell’s influence over this team, it was even felt on the defensive side. As the offense grew more one-dimensional with each drive, Dick LeBeau turned on “conservative mode,” getting his corners to play off-coverage in the hope of limiting big plays. Gone was the disruptive front seven and ball hawking secondary of the month before. All because one man was missing, the Steelers refused to bust out the moves that got them to the big dance, and Baltimore made them pay.

So as Pittsburgh hunkers down for another offseason that has come all too quickly, the fanbase can take solace in the fact that Bell still has his entire career ahead of him. Barring any further setbacks, the Steelers will start the 2015 season with one of the very few pure every-down backs in the NFL.

The team will need a duplicate performance from him, plus more, to finally start making noise in the playoffs again.

Jonathon Natsis covers the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @JohnHollywood92, ‘like’ him on Facebookor add him to your network on  Google+

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