Last season, the Pittsburgh Steelers missed the NFL playoffs for the first time since 2013. Former running back Le'Veon Bell thinks that it should not have gone that way.
In fact, Bell told Sports Illustrated's Jenny Vrentas that he felt that if he had played, the Steelers would have won the Super Bowl. Instead, he held out for a better contract, missing the entire season as a result, and Pittsburgh finished the year 9–6–1.
Here's an excerpt from Vrentas's cover story on Bell, which details the logic behind his reasoning:
The missed opportunity, for a team with a now-37-year-old QB [in Ben Roethlisberger], isn’t lost on anyone, including Bell, who says, “If I’d played this year, we would have won the Super Bowl.