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#3 The Steelers need to stop all this drama
The Pittsburgh Steelers have always been one of the blue-collar organisations in the NFL and they were known for how hard they play. However, these recent years no other team have been in the news more than them and there are always little things coming up, that often times don’t have anything to do with what actually happens on the field.
While you can argue that Ben Roethlisberger has been a diva for quite a while now with contemplating retirement and calling out some of his teammates, let’s just talk about 2018. Things started with All-Pro running back Le’Veon Bell not showing up for any of the offseason activities, as the talk about his contract situation continued.
Bell already started saying that he wouldn’t play under the franchise tag at the end of 2017 and continued to threaten that he would hold out, but the front office decided to tag him anyway. As the season approached and there were speculations about when he might show up, his teammates even started setting dates and that ended in his offensive linemen making comments about money and team spirit.
This went on until the trade deadline while James Conner was balling out for them and hovered over the team, as Bell ultimately never joined them. When that started to finally go away, it was Antonio Brown complaining about targets and not being cool with the offensive play-calling.
Brown was talking about how this was all about winning, but most of those outbursts came when his team actually was ahead and he started to quiet down when the ball came his way more often. And then, finally Big Ben was the same drama king he has always been, trashing his own receivers on his radio show, denying that later with the media and not taking any responsibility for costly turnovers at critical moments in games.
The Steelers' star running back and receiver probably will be gone soon with how their relationships with the team have developed, as Bell is set to become a free agent (unless Pittsburgh puts the transition tag on him) and AB has already publicly asked for a trade.
Yet, not even with those guys, they could get past the Patriots in the playoffs, because New England seemed to always have a psychological edge over them. Even if the Steelers lose some of their star-power on offence, they have enough talent on that roster to make noise – they just need to freaking play and not act like the Kardashians, in JuJu Smith-Schuster’s words.
