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Steelers’ Bell wants to get more carries

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PITTSBURGH – Heading into the fourth quarter of Sunday against the Steelers, Jacksonville rookie Leonard Fournette had 12 rushing attempts for 42 yards.

He got 16 more carries in the fourth quarter, the final one going for a 90-yard touchdown run that was the cherry on the top of a 30-9 victory by the Jaguars at Heinz Field.

Fournette’s fourth-quarter workload was one more carry that Le’Veon Bell had in the entire game. Bell had only 15 carries for 47 yards. None of Bell’s carries came in the fourth quarter and only six were in the second half as the Jaguars returned two interceptions for touchdowns and then ground down the clock on the Steelers with Fournette.

“I don’t think we got enough attempts,” Bell said Monday.

And it likely wouldn’t have been much different unless the Steelers (3-2) had built a big lead.

Bell said the game plan was not designed to flow through him as it had been a week before in a win at Baltimore when he got 35 rushing attempts for 144 yards.

The Steelers planned to come out throwing against the Jaguars (3-2), despite Jacksonville entering the game with the league’s top-rated pass defense and were allowing 165 yards rushing per game.

Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger threw the football 55 times, including a career-worst five interceptions, and the Steelers settled for three field goals in three red zone trips.

“We have to find a way to punch in points when we’re in the red zone,” said wide receiver Antonio Brown, who had 10 receptions for 157 yards.

“Three points is not going to get the job done. We have to get the ball in the end zone.”

The idea behind the game plan was to get ahead of the Jaguars and force them to abandon their running game. Instead, Jacksonville attempted just one pass in the second half and 14 in the game while running the ball 37 times.

Bell would have liked the opportunity to carry the offense, as he did against the Ravens and throughout the second half of last season when he averaged 27.5 carries during a nine-game Steelers winning streak.

“I think that is just the formula for winning,” Bell said. “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.”

One of those heavy-running games came in Kansas City, an 18-16 Divisional Round playoff win for Pittsburgh. The Steelers play at the Chiefs (5-0) Sunday, hoping to hand the NFL’s last unbeaten team its first loss.

Bell had 314 rushing yards against the Chiefs last year, including a team-playoff record 170 on 30 carries in that playoff win at Arrowhead Stadium.

The Chiefs, who are giving up 118 rushing yards per game – tied for 20th in the league – surely will stack the line of scrimmage to stop Bell.

Jacksonville did the same thing, playing press coverage on the wide receivers with only one safety deep, almost daring the Steelers to throw the ball.

“We knew if we wanted to have the day we desired to have, we’d have to take our shots and get some plays down the field over their heads,” said Brown, who did just that on Pittsburgh’s first offensive play, catching a 49-yard pass against cornerback Jalen Ramsey.

Pittsburgh’s longest pass the rest of the game went for only 21 yards. And the Jaguars continued to stack the line of scrimmage to stop 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,” said Bell. “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.”

The Steelers have won five of the past six meetings with Kansas City, the lone loss coming at Arrowhead Stadium in a 2015 game started by backup quarterback Landry Jones when Roethlisberger was injured. … The Steelers are allowing an NFL-low 140 passing yards per game, though their run defense has fallen to 28th in the league.

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