Watch: Bell tiptoes away from contact for a touchdown

Steel City Underground will pick a play of the game from each side of the ball each week of the Steelers 2017 season. Stay tuned as we hand select the very best from the black and gold!

This will go down as one of those “are you kidding me?” plays of the 2017 season.

Always patient and light on his feet, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell provided a much-needed spark with about nine minutes left in the third quarter. Down 17-3 at the half, the Steelers received the ball after the defense forced the Bengals to a three-and-out to start the half. If Pittsburgh were to make something happen, they had to do it now.

It was 2nd-and-10 from the Cincinnati 35, following a deep pass attempt in the end zone where Antonio Brown couldn’t retain possession of the ball. The bad luck looked like it might keep rolling through the night, but a turn of events happened as Bell took a check-down pass from Ben Roethlisberger on the next play, and turned nothing (literally) into something.

Note: pair this play with the Bud Dupree non-sack of Andy Dalton in this game, and I believe the players were truthfully rattled by the environment and officiating crew. Bengals CB William Jackson III is the player who doesn’t make the extra contact with Bell to make sure he’s out of bounds but may have anticipated he would’ve been out and possibly flagged for a late hit, in a game where the referees were throwing flags for anything. (And everything!)


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