The National Football League will conclude their first week of regular season play tonight with a pair of Monday Night Football contests. The action begins in New Jersey when the New York Giants host the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game set to begin at 4:15 p.m. Pacific Time. The second game on tonight’s schedule, the Tennessee Titans at Denver Broncos, kicks off at 7:10 p.m.
The Giants contest marks the debut of Joe Judge, who is the fourth head coach the Giants have hired since Tom Coughlin left after the 2015 season. None of the previous three have ended their short terms with a winning record. The Giants have also turned the page at quarterback, where long time starter and two-time Super Bowl winner Eli Manning lost his starting job last year to Daniel Jones and retired after the season.
While the Giants are looking to begin anew, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in search of regaining their championship form with the return of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. The future Hall of Fame signal caller was lost early in last year’s campaign and that was one of the major reasons why the Steelers, who for years earned a playoff spot almost as routinely as Santa Claus shows up on Christmas, were home last season when the postseason kicked off.
But it wasn’t the only reason the Steelers greatness might be in the rearview mirror. A few years ago, when the Steelers were last a threat to win it all, they had a trio of players that struck fear in opposing defenses. In addition to Big Ben, Pittsburgh featured two of the league’s best at their positions, runningback Le’Veon Bell and wide receiver Anotnio Brown.
In 2018, Bell negotiated with the Steelers like a divorcing couple battling over disputes with lawyers. The year-long argument looked like an episode of one of those housewives of some city made for television shows. In the end, Bell skipped the entire 2018 season, while the Steelers suffered one of their few years without a playoff berth, and then took his talents to the New York Jets, where he has had as much success as me trying to dunk over LeBron James.
In his return to the gridiron last season, Bell recorded a career low 789 rushing yards with the Jets and was injured in yesterday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills after carrying the ball six times for 14 yards. The only thing Bell has won in three years is his paycheck from the Jets.