‘They Didn’t Want It To Work:’ Le’Veon Bell Explains The One Change That Could’ve Kept Him In Pittsburgh

The mid-2010s Pittsburgh Steelers had one of the best offenses in the league, nicknamed the Killer Bs. They got that name because of their star players, Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and Le’Veon Bell. Unfortunately, that era of Steelers football didn’t end well. Bell had a particularly ugly split with the team. He held out the entire 2018 season because of a contract dispute, leaving Pittsburgh after that year. However, he believes that things could’ve been different had Omar Khan been the team’s general manager.

“I feel like they didn’t want it to work,” Bell said recently on Netflix’s The White House podcast. “At the time, it was Kevin Colbert, I think the GM now, Omar Khan, if that exact situation happened again, I think it gets done. I think the deal gets done, Killer Bs is still there…the GM at the time and my agent, they had a [problem].”

Bell’s contract issues began when the Steelers placed the franchise tag on him for the 2017 season. He wanted a long-term deal, but the two sides couldn’t agree on one. However, Bell still suited up for them that year and earned First-team All-Pro honors.

Unfortunately, the Steelers and Bell still couldn’t agree to a deal after that, and the team put the franchise tag on him again. Bell retaliated by sitting out for the entire 2018 season. He left the Steelers for the New York Jets in 2019, ending his time as one of the NFL’s best running backs. Bell never had more than 800 rushing yards in a season after that, and he hasn’t played in the league since 2021.

Bell’s agent at the time was Adisa Bakari, who has negotiated deals for several NFL and NBA players. The NFLPA’s website states that he has negotiated 23 current contracts. While it’s unclear if Bakari and Colbert actually had an issue, negotiations didn’t seem to be going great between them in 2018.

During Bell’s dispute that year, Bakari went on SiriusXM NFL Radio and made some comments about his client’s situation. In response, Colbert stated that the Steelers wouldn’t discuss the situation through the media. It seemed like Bakari’s tactics might have rubbed Colbert the wrong way.

There’s no telling if things would’ve been different with Khan, though. One of Bell’s biggest sticking points was the lack of guaranteed money from Pittsburgh. That practice has changed slightly, but it may have been tough for him to work that into his deal because he plays running back. There’s a great deal of risk associated with giving that much money to that position.

For what it’s worth, Colbert had nothing but nice things to say about Bell a few years ago. He even said he wished the running back had stayed in Pittsburgh for his whole career. It doesn’t sound like he wanted Bell to leave. It was just an unfortunate scenario where the organization and player never reached a middle ground.