Le’Veon Bell’s next season with the Pittsburgh Steelers will almost certainly be his last.

The Pro Bowl running back and the defending AFC North champions failed to reach an agreement on a new contract by Monday’s deadline Darren Fells Jersey , meaning he will play under the franchise tag for a second straight year and hit the open market next spring.

Bell tweeted that he ”both sides worked extremely hard” to try and find common ground but ultimately could not.

”The NFL is a hard business at times … to the fans that had hope, I’m sorry we let you down but trust me, 2018 will be my best season to date,” Bell posted.

The 26-year-old Bell is one of the league’s most versatile players and he has long maintained he wants to be paid accordingly. In addition to serving as a workhorse in the backfield – his 321 rushing attempts last season led the NFL – he also caught 85 passes, good enough for 10th in the league.

Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said the team will make another attempt to re-sign Bell in the 2019 offseason, but another Pro Bowl-type season by Bell would likely make him too expensive.

Bell will make $14.5 million whenever he signs his franchise tender, which likely won’t be until the end of training camp. It’s the path Bell followed last summer after the Steelers placed the franchise tag on him for the first time.

He arrived the weekend after the end of the exhibition season and got off to a bit of a slow start before finding his footing in October while helping the Steelers to a second straight division title and fourth consecutive playoff appearance.

The depth chart behind Bell is uneven at best. James Conner showed signs during his rookie season last fall before a knee injury. The team drafted Jaylen Samuels – who did a little bit of everything at North Carolina State – in the fifth round this spring. Samuels was an effective receiver for the Wolfpack but he lacks Bell’s unique overall skillset.

One the Steelers – barring an unusual turn of events – will have in the fold for just one more year.

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The St. Louis Cardinals left Arizona feeling a little bit better about themselves, thanks to a late-inning surge by the offense and another strong outing from Miles Mikolas.

The Cardinals scored seven times in the seventh and eighth innings to beat Arizona 8-4 on Wednesday night. After coming to town on a four-game losing streak and off a three-game sweep at the hands of Atlanta Ozzie Newsome Jersey , St. Louis took two of three from the first-place Diamondbacks.

Yadier Molina’s three-run homer on the first pitch from reliever Fernando Salas highlighted a five-run Cardinals seventh inning after Arizona had nursed a 2-1 lead through six in front of a sellout crowd of 44,072.

”Had some big hits today,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. ”It allows those big five-run innings to happen. Wear the pitcher down, wear the defense down. Then you have Yadi come in and do something special on the back end.”

Tommy Pham drove in three Cardinals runs with a double and two singles. Matt Carpenter doubled twice and singled with one RBI.

”Carp kind of set the tone. He got on base a lot,” Pham said. ”I think we had good at-bats. Even when the results weren’t there, we made guys throw pitches. That’s key. If a guy is taking four or five plus pitches to get outs, that means you are grinding as a hitter. When you put that together as a team, it wears out pitching staffs.”

The Diamondbacks dropped to 1-5 on their homestand and lead the surging Los Angeles Dodgers by just a half-game in the NL West.

Mikolas (9-3) gave up two runs and seven hits Calvin Johnson Jersey , walked four and struck out three.

Arizona reliever Yoshihisa Hirano (2-1) had his franchise-record streak of 26 games without allowing a run end when Yairo Munoz homered to lead off the seventh. Hirano gave up four runs, one earned, on three hits in two-thirds of an inning for his first loss since coming to the major leagues from Japan this season.

”Yoshi’s human,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. ”That’s what it means, right? And he’s absolutely spoiled us. He’s been a slam-dunk reliever and he made a really tough game look easy for a long time.”

After Munoz’s homer, shortstop Ketel Marte booted pinch-hitter Tyler O’Neill’s grounder for an error. With one out and O’Neill on second, Pham singled to center to put the Cardinals up 3-2. Center fielder Jarrod Dyson left the game with discomfort in his right groin area, Lovullo said.

Salas relieved Hirano and gave up the big hit to Molina Sam Mills Jersey , who homered twice in the series.

”It was like two totally different games,” Lovullo said. ”The first six innings were exactly the way you’d like to see guys go out and execute and do their job, and then the final three innings unfortunately we couldn’t execute in a lot of key areas.”

HARD-LUCK LEFTY

Arizona starter Patrick Corbin allowed one run and six hits in six innings, his third straight strong outing without a decision. He’s given up two runs in 19 innings during those three starts.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Cardinals: Paul DeJong (broken left hand) homered and doubled and played shortstop all nine innings Tuesday night in his fourth rehab game for Triple-A Memphis. Matheny said DeJong would not be activated Thursday in San Francisco but could be at some time during the four-game series.

Diamondbacks: Right-handed reliever Randall Delgado (left oblique strain) was scheduled to make another rehab appearance for Triple-A Reno and is expected to be activated Thursday, the end of his rehab assignment. … OF Steven Souza Jr. (strained right pectoral) had Wednesday off in his rehab assignment with Reno after homering twice for the Aces on Tuesday night. Souza has three homers in his last two rehab games.

UP NEXT

Cardinals: Head to San Francisco for four games against the Giants. RHP Luke Weaver (4-7, 5.16 ERA) starts for St. Louis in Thursday night’s opener. Johnny Cueto (3-0, 0.84) comes off the disabled list to pitch for the Giants.

Diamondbacks: RHP Shelby Miller (0-2, 11.42) Charles Leno Jersey , following two rough starts in his return from Tommy John surgery, takes the mound Thursday night in the opener of a four-game home series against San Diego. LHP Eric Lauer (3-5, 5.08) goes for the Padres.

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