Le’Veon Bell will make his first NFL playoff appearance with Ben Roethlisberger

Ben Roethlisberger understands how crucial a balanced offensive attack is in the playoffs. After all, he’s won postseason games with tailbacks like Jerome Bettis, Willie Parker, and Rashard Mendenhall.

But despite sharing a sideline with Le’Veon Bell the past four seasons, he’s never had the chance to hand the ball to his All-Pro tailback in the playoffs — until Sunday.

Bell will make his postseason debut when the Steelers host the Dolphins in a Wild Card showdown. This is the team’s third playoff appearance since selecting the elusive tailback in the 2013 NFL draft, but injuries kept him from carrying Pittsburgh to the AFC title game or beyond. Bell missed his first chance to make an impact for his team when a hyperextended right knee kept him from a 30-17 loss to archrival Baltimore in 2015.

He missed an opportunity to get revenge on Cincinnati and Vontaze Burfict the following year. Bell missed the bulk of that season thanks to a torn MCL suffered when the mercurial linebacker dragged him down in a Week 8 loss. While the Steelers were able to use Burfict’s dirty play against him to squeak out a wild card win that year, they were stopped in the following round by the Denver Broncos.

Pittsburgh is 11-6 in the playoffs since Roethlisberger assumed the team’s starting position but just 1-2 when Bell has been sidelined due to injury. In his stead, the Steelers have turned to running backs like Jordan Todman, Fitzgerald Toussaint, Josh Harris, Ben Tate, and Dri Archer. It hasn’t been super successful: In those three postseason games, the team’s running backs gained 214 yards on 61 carries — an average of 3.5 yards per touch.

Meanwhile Bell, who was named a second-team All-Pro earlier this week, ran for 451 yards in his last three games. The hybrid back averages 4.5 yards per carry for his career.

Bell’s absence allowed Antonio Brown to shine, and the All-Pro receiver stepped up with 117- and 119-yard games in his two postseason appearances since 2013. He’s teamed with Roethlisberger and Bell for some prolific performances the past four seasons. On Sunday, he’ll have a dynamic running game to help prevent double-teams in the secondary. While the quantity of his targets may decrease with Bell earning more carries, the quality should increase significantly.

That backfield threat will be the extra gear the Steelers have needed in recent years. They’ve scored only 17 points per game during that 1-2 playoff stretch. While Roethlisberger (902 passing yards, an 87.7 passer rating) has been solid, it’s clear the team has missed Bell’s playmaking and ability to stretch defenses thin with aggressive runs both inside the tackles and out.

Pittsburgh is home to what may be the NFL’s hottest franchise, and the Steelers’ myriad ways to beat you on offense is punctuated by the presence of Roethlisberger, Brown, and Bell. For the first time ever, they’ll have the final piece of that puzzle available for the playoffs.