[one_half]Pro – Adrian Wong

Le’veon Bell is undoubtedly one of the top offensive weapons in the NFL. It is reasonable that he expects to be paid as much as the other top weapons. Unfortunately, to achieve this, he is being forced to hurt his team. He is not being a good teammate, but that isn’t required of him.

NFL players are constantly disrespected by their teams. Teams refuse to give guaranteed contracts to players, and regularly cut players when they are hurt, or when they begin to slow down. Recently, Seattle showed their willingness to disrespect players by cutting team legend, Richard Sherman, after he tore his Achilles tendon. Sherman lost the final year of his four-year $56 million-dollar contract. Bell knows the risk of injury, especially after leading the NFL with 406 touches last year. Bell has earned himself a large, guaranteed contract, and his holdout is simply a method to ensure it.

Without Bell, the Steelers are an undeniably worse team, and they will notice this every week, until Bell is forced to return to the Steelers locker room. With Bell set to be a free agent this Spring, he appears poised to get the payday he deserves, by whichever team makes him the best offer. 

[one_half]Against – Rick-kendy Noziere 

If the question was “is Le’veon Bell being a bad negotiator?”, I would have said no. I believe that people should stand up for what they believe in.

But the word teammate is important in this aspect. If your decision is affecting your team, then you should probably stop doing what you are doing. Being part of a team is a sacred thing; it is telling your teammates ‘you can count on me’. But Bell essentially said to the club owners “Ineed more money,” undermining the clichéd maxim “there’s no I in team”.

Le’veon Bell is a great running back and arguably because of his decision, the Pittsburgh Steelers lost two games, tied one game and won two so far this season. In my opinion, Le’veon Bell is being incredibly selfish here. Selfishness is good for business, which football certainly is in a way, but not in this case.

Photo via Creative Commons