Steelers cut LeGarrette Blount after reportedly leaving field early

Week 11 in the NFL from now on shall be known as the week when participation became optional.

There were some strange player opt-out decisions on Sunday, such as the San Francisco 49ers' Ahmad Brooks taking off his cleats and benching himself and the Seattle Seahawks' Marshawn Lynch deciding not to join his teammates in the locker room at halftime.

That theme carried over to Monday night's game, too, it appears.

Pittsburgh Steelers running back LeGarrette Blount might have been on the winning side in a 27-24 victory over the Tennessee Titans, but he reportedly was upset at receiving zero carries in the game. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ed Bouchette reported that Blount left the field before the end of the game and suggested that at least one teammate felt the Steelers should have left Blount in Nashville.

He might have made it back to Pittsburgh, but the Steelers decided enough was enough — they released Blount on Tuesday.

“We believe the decision to release LeGarrette is in the best interest of the organization and wish him the best of luck,” Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said in a statement released by the team.

One reason Blount was passed over was because No. 1 back Le'Veon Bell was having a career night, bashing his way through Titans defenders like bowling pins for 33 carries, 204 rush yards and a touchdown. But another, per the Bouchette report, might be more telling: It suggests that the Steelers have grown weary of Blount's ways — that he has been "an internal problem for at least a month" — and that he might be dragging down Bell, although there clearly was no sign of that at LP Field.

Releasing Blount certainly backs up those claims.

Both Bell and Blount were arrested for marijuana charges in the preseason, and it was Bell that time who was left behind — the Steelers forced him to make his own way to the team's game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Although neither were suspended, Tomlin was upset with the news.

For Blount, his NFL chances might be running out. After being suspended in college at Oregon for punching a player, he has led a wayward NFL existence, playing for four teams in five pro seasons. Blount had a resurgence at the end of the 2013 season with the New England Patriots but was allowed to walk in free agency to sign with the Steelers.

Blount now has seen Bell and the Patriots' Jonas Gray, who has emerged in the Blount power-back role in New England, carry the ball 33 and 38 times, respectively, and has to wonder where it all went wrong.