Nov 3, 2015 5 min read

Mike Tomlin confirmed today that Le’Veon Bell does not have a torn ACL, which is good news when it comes to the recovery of the Steelers’ star running back.

MCL and PCL tears are bad, but they are much easier managed than an ACL tear, which now takes 6-8 months to rehab. That would have possibly taken the Steelers into next season and put them in a precarious position with Bell.

And they are now in a tough position with their star running back as it is. He will be entering his fourth season in this offseason – which is when the team should be talking about a new contract with him. He’ll be entering the final season of his rookie deal in 2016.

The Steelers could tag Bell, but that would be costly, more so than signing him to a long-term deal.

But what do you offer him and what will he accept?

Based on his pre-injury play, he should no doubt be paid among the top five players at his position. That ranges from $14 million per season for Adrian Peterson down to $8 million for LeSean McCoy and DeMarco Murray.

That’s a lot of cash. But with Ben Roethlisberger playing out his final years, you want to take advantage of that situation. Bell definitely helps do that.

There’s also the theory that running backs aren’t that important any more. We’ll find out about that in the second half of this season, at least to a certain extent.

To me, however, the devaluation of running backs is something of a myth put forth by teams that don’t have a good one trying to talk themselves into believing it is the case.

@ Tomlin said Stephon Tuitt and Will Allen are expected to return to practice this week.

When I asked, however, if Allen would go back into the starting lineup at strong safety in place of Robert Golden, Tomlin refused to answer, saying he wouldn’t deal with hypothetical issues.

I don’t know how hypothetical that really is. Your former starter is coming back to practice. Will he still be the starter when he comes back?

Seems pretty simple to me. And his answer tells me that he’s at least considering sticking with Golden.

@ Tomlin was asked about the post-play penalties that both Mike Mitchell and James Harrison had against the Bengals – two of 10 total penalties the team had in the game.

He opened his press conference saying that the team had to be less penalized – though admittedly that had not been a problem overall this year.

But he wouldn’t go so far as to condemn Harrison or Mitchell, at least not publicly.

“The penalties were disturbing,” said Tomlin. “That is not how we play. We are going to fix it, and fix it ASAP. It was an issue in the game. We got penalized 10 times. Penalties had been an asset to us over the course of the season. It’s been a winning edge. It’s something we take pride in. We were highly penalized in the game and that was a detriment to our efforts.”

Some Steelers players have taken umbrage at what they felt was a celebration by Cincinnati linebacker Vonteze Burfict following the injury of Bell.

But I didn’t see anything demonstrative such as the way Mitchell celebrated after making a big hit on Cincinnati receiver Marvin Jones that left Jones on the field for several moments.

You can’t go after one and not point out the other. In fact, I thought Mitchell’s was far more over the top than anything Burfict did – though I don’t know what was said on the field.

I get playing with an edge. And I get being excited about making a play. Emotion is certainly part of the game.

But keep it to a dull roar, especially when the player you hit is down on the field.

Mitchell has played well this year. But I, for one, could do without the histrionics.

@ Mitchell, by the way, is still undergoing NFL concussion protocol.

@ Tomlin gave a very good, very detailed, very reasonable explanation as to why he did not call a timeout before the two-minute warning Sunday saying he wanted to preserve a timeout for his offense on the back end of the two-minute warning.

Why?

Because he felt the Bengals would defend the Steelers differently if they had a timeout in their pocket. With the timeout in hand, Tomlin felt the whole field would be in play instead of the Bengals playing more of a cover-2 umbrella-style defense that would have forced the Steelers to dink their way down the field five yards at a time.

As things turned out, the Steelers were throwing into their end zone on the game’s final play from the 16, not the 40.

It was a much better situation. They didn’t win. But Tomlin’s decision not to use the timeouts wasn’t the reason why.

The star quarterback’s three interceptions – two of which came in the fourth quarter and led to the Bengals’ final 10 points – were the reason for that.

I’ve been called a homer and apologist for saying that. Oh well.

I guess the people excusing or forgetting about the poor decisions/throws by the quarterback must be homers or apologists for him.

The bottom line is that there is no wrong or right way to manage the end of a game. People have their own ideas about how they would do it. But that doesn’t make them right or wrong.

Results are what matters most, and while the Steelers didn’t win, Tomlin’s decision gave them an opportunity to win it.