Colbert: Bell hasn't reached full potential

LATROBE, Pa. -- If history repeats itself, you'd better learn from it.

And Kevin Colbert hopes the Steelers have — at least when it comes to Le'Veon Bell.

Colbert said Friday he felt not having Bell in training camp last season hurt the running back — and thus the team. But to what point it hurt Bell's 2017 season, Colbert isn't sure.

"This goes back to your question last year, and when you asked me that question last year – did him missing training camp hurt him? – he’s a Pro Bowler," Colbert said at Saint Vincent College. "Did it hurt us? Could he have been a better Pro Bowler? Yes, I believe so, because I think anybody that misses training camp, be it through injury or not being here, they’re not going to be as good. Was he still a Pro Bowler? Yes, he was. But from a team standpoint, which is our main focus right now, sure, to have everybody here is important. But he’s not here, so we can’t dwell on it. All we can do is try to get better with what we’ve got, and whenever that changes, then we’ll deal with that."

After the Steelers placed the franchise tag on Bell last year, the running back did not report and sign the deal until a few days before the regular season began. And he was limited in the Steelers' first game at Cleveland, getting just 10 carries for 32 yards. He also averaged just 3.2 yards per carry the next week against Minnesota, though his carries ramped up to 27.

Fast forward to this year and Bell will again be playing on the franchise tag — at a cost of $14.5 million — after he and the Steelers were unable to come to terms on a long-term contract. Colbert once again would like to see Bell here at training camp, but understands the situation.

He also feels any concerns of Bell not putting forth his best effort this season — saving himself for potential free agency — are unfounded.

"He’ll be in top physical condition. He won’t be in top football condition," Colbert said. "When he gets on the field, I never worry about Bell’s competitiveness because he is, uh, he wants to prove what he believes – that he’s the best. So I don’t worry about that at all, and I think that he’ll do that in a team, you know, he’s going to put team over individual goals."

To that point, despite his slow start and sitting out the meaningless regular season finale against Cleveland, Bell led the NFL with 406 total touches in 2017, gaining 1,291 yards rushing and 655 receiving on 85 catches while scoring 11 touchdowns.

As Colbert mentioned, it was a Pro Bowl season. But as he also said, it might have been better had Bell come to training camp.

"Anything you do individually, it doesn’t because you don’t get that work with those five offensive linemen or those five offensive linemen and the tight end," Colbert said. "And this fit on this run versus that … that’s all a conditioned reaction and time. It takes time to do that and get that feel. And even when we practice, it’s not going to be what they see in a preseason game. In a preseason game, it’s not going to be what they see in a regular season game, but they’ll be better prepared for that regular season game if they’ve gone through the preseason games."

Many outside the Steelers' locker room see Bell as a potential distraction. And for the Steelers, that would just carry on what happened last season, when the team was seemingly dealing with one distraction after the next. The Steelers still went 13-3 in the regular season but were abruptly bounced from the playoffs in the Divisional Round by Jacksonville.

"We are always critical of who we are, what we do," Colbert said. "We always review it and we talk about it, but it’s not like it’s a formal, 'guys, we have to do this.' No, we always want to be better at what we do on the field, off the field, team attitude. The players have to take some of that on themselves. Look we can draft them, Coach (Mike) Tomlin can coach them, but when they are out there it’s up to them. A lot of this falls on all three aspects of this thing."

What are those three aspects?

"Offense, defense, special teams, personnel, coaching players, you know what I mean," Colbert said. "It’s a whole thing, but there’s no concern whatsoever about our team’s attitude, discipline, all that other stuff that gets talked about. Absolutely no concern because I am very comfortable working with this organization with a head coach that people don’t understand. They don’t see the Coach Tomlin in a meeting room. They don’t hear Coach Tomlin talk to his team and watch them pay attention. They don’t see him in a one-on-one meeting with a player, whether it’s the player is doing something good or bad. They don’t see him projecting and we get into their personal lives a lot because he cares about them as people as much as he does as players, and I think that is very uncommon for his position and the demands that’s made on him; he’ll go beyond the professional demands to make sure that he is doing the best he can for a player personally."

But certainly some of his own players have expressed an interest in seeing the Steelers be more "buttoned up" and not have so much perceived turmoil.

In fact, David DeCastro, who was upset with some of his teammates following the team's 45-42 loss to the Jaguars, said he'd like the team to not deal with what he called "BS" this season.

"I hope people realize it with last year and all of that BS," he told me earlier this week. "I hope guys realize it’s one game at a time. Don’t let your head get too big. It can come off real quick in this league."

Colbert, however, isn't worried about that. He understands players — and fans — will be critical after a big loss.

"Usually when you lose a game you’re not happy and you are going to look at different things," he said. "We also looked at, I’m sure (DeCastro) wasn’t happy with his performance, my performance, coach’s performance, no one is happy and they may pick out certain things, but to think that we weren’t prepared for that game? I do not agree with it. We got outplayed that day in all three phases, that is the simplicity of it and whether it was preparation or ... I don’t believe any of that. It was what happened once we hit the grass in all three phases."

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY