Vincent Frank, Sportsnaut | Source, MSN
The Pittsburgh Steelers will be making their preseason debut Friday against the New York Giants. The team won’t have stars Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown in uniform. Both Big Ben and Brown will be held out simply because Pittsburgh doesn’t want to risk injury to them.
On the other hand, Bell will not be in uniform because he is holding out after being handed the franchise tag tender during the spring. With the deadline to sign a new contract having already passed, Bell really doesn’t have much to gain here. He’s either going to report at some point and sign the franchise tender or hold out into the regular season.
It’s in this that Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert has decided to call out his star running back.
“My feeling is there’s nothing to be gained by a holdout. The situation won’t change, it can’t really change from our part on a long-term deal. So it hurts him not to be here,” Colbert said, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It hurts him because he’s not working with his teammates, he’s not getting the conditioning work that he’s going to need to have a great 2017 season. And he’s not working with his teammates to get acclimated to the offense — every year it’s different.”