I think it's super interesting.
The logical thing is for him to not play. Why would he? He's not playing now for $850,000 per game. Why would he risk injury for $30,000 per game? Sitting out makes complete financial sense.
It's the same argument you see from college players skipping the bowl game as they enter the draft.
The other side is there are lots of people who cannot fathom an NFL player skipping the postseason because it doesn't make financial sense.
I don't think the logical thing is to not play. He's not doing a calculation of dollars per touch. He's just understandably trying to avoid going on the market with 400 touches in back years.
Other agents would love to convince him to skip the playoffs, because the bogeyman of a holdout would increase tenfold if he did and still got a big contract afterwards. This would be an incredible precedent for them when bargaining for future clients and for the nflpa when bargaining to overhaul the franchise tag rules.
But his agent,
Adisa Bakari, knows that Bell's next contract not only represents millions of dollars of commission, but a huge turning point in his own career. If bell gets paid, other players looking down the barrel of the franchise tag will sign with him to credibly threaten to do the same thing. If bell doesn't get paid, this could crush his career. Bell is by far his biggest profile client.
Holding out has a precedent. Teams won't like it but they wouldn't have liked paying a player with historic wear on his tires either. But doing unprecedented things that hurt your team to get more money - that's risky business. And it's not a risk Bakari or Bell can afford to take.
The steelers can't mess around either. They can't rescind the tag, or suspend him, or act like he's the backup to Conner now because Conner is so much better. Pittsburgh is currently winless at 0-1-1 with a division tie and a conference loss against a likely playoff team. They finish the season with the Jaguars, Broncos, chargers, raiders, Patriots, saints and bengals. As much as they'd love to stick it to him, they badly need bell if they want to make the playoffs. And missing the playoffs would be an unmitigated disaster. Every good player would threaten holdout. The locker room is already a mess. Just a nightmare in so many ways.
The players may be upset with him, but what are they going to do? By that point they'll need him as much as he needs them.
So ultimately I see both sides day dreaming about doing terrible things to each other, but doing exactly what's expected. He'll show up week ten, make amends with his teammates as best he can, and get on with trying to make the playoffs as a team.
The one thing that could change it is if the steelers go on a long undefeated streak and decide not to mess with the chemistry, or if they're out of the playoffs and don't need him for half a year. In the former case, bell might not come back as the starter, so there's no reason to skip the playoffs. In the latter he might not come back at all.
