What a difference a week makes.
Against the Ravens Le'Veon Bell had 35 carries for 144 yards in a 23-9 win in Baltimore.
On Sunday, Bell had just 15 carries for 47 yards in the Steelers 30-9 loss to the Jaguars at Heinz Field. James Conner added three carries for nine yards.
"I don't think we got enough attempts," said Bell on Monday.
When asked directly if the idea going in was to run the ball, Bell simply said, 'No.'
The Steelers threw the ball 30 times against the Ravens, while Ben Roethlisberger had 55 pass attempts against the Jaguars, part of that due to the Steelers falling behind.
Bell, though, feels ball control football from the get-go is the way to go.
"I think that is just the formula for winning," said Bell. "The Jaguars ran the ball a lot of times. You see over the course of the game it wearing down the defense. Running the ball shortens the game, opens the offense, makes passing the ball easier, and it gets you in third and manageable downs.
"Over the course of the season you will see the teams that run the ball heavy are the teams that win games."
The Jaguars ran the ball 37 times for 231 yards, aided by a 90-yard run by Leonard Fournette, while Blake Bortles had just 14 pass attempts.
And while Bell said the Jaguars likely expected the Steelers to run the ball, especially with the NFL's 28th ranked rush defense and No. 1 pass defense headed into the game, he stil felt they should have been able to do so, and that when they did run the ball, things were working.
"Coming off the Ravens game they saw what happened," said Bell. "Of course they came out to try to stop and get us out of the run. It doesn't matter. We are a good enough team that we can wear guys out whether they know we are running the ball or not.
"I felt like there was room in there. I felt like there was air. The stats don't really show what happened. Some runs we lost yards, but I feel like we were running the ball effectively."
Despite his disappointment in the loss, Bell knows it's just one game and this team has the ability to bounce back strong.
"We just had a bad game, we didn't play well," said Bell. "We are going to go watch the film, as a team, as collective groups. We're going to figure out what the mistakes were and get back to the drawing board and get ready for next week."
