Le’Veon Bell’s Jets tenure has not gone well. His coach, Adam Gase, does not seem to be a particular fan of his, going out of his way to bring in backfield competition for Bell, who ranked near the bottom of the league in yards per attempt last year (3.2). Beyond the pesky presence of newcomers Frank Gore and Kalen Ballage (both players Gase coached in Miami), Bell may also be staring down the barrel of his own football mortality.
Though Gore continues to elude Father Time’s grasp, that may not be the case for Bell, who has logged an exhausting 1,852 touches since arriving as a second-round rookie in 2013. And that’s despite missing most of 2015 with a torn MCL and all of 2018 due to a nasty contract dispute with his former team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
A committed Bell showed up to Jets camp looking noticeably slimmer at 210 pounds (well below his listed 225), but that optimism has quickly faded. Beat reporter Brian Costello of the New York Post has identified Bell as the team’s third-best back this summer—and not by a particularly close margin—behind Gore and rookie fourth-rounder La’Mical Perine.
Costello noted Bell has looked “slow” (which has quietly always been true, though in Pittsburgh, they preferred the word “patient”), showing alarmingly little burst despite his improved physique. The Jets cited a “hamstring” tweak as the reason for his light practice load of late, though Bell has emphatically refuted that claim. Costello has been “hesitant to draw conclusions” in the absence of live tackling, but it seems the more he’s watched of Bell, the more he wonders whether the three-time Pro Bowler has “any tread left on the tire.”
So is Bell, a first-team All-Pro selection as recently as 2017, cooked? Costello’s bleak evaluation would certainly lend credence to that theory. And if you think this prevailing anti-Bell sentiment being propagated by Costello and others in the New York media is all an orchestrated hit job masterminded by Gase (which, admittedly, is not out of the realm of possibility given his track record), you might want to think again.
As much as he may hate Bell—and he sure seems to—even the conniving and frequently arrogant Gase is sensible enough to know there’s no tangible benefit to framing the 28-year-old as a has-been. If no one was interested in trading for Bell’s contract last year, they certainly won’t be following reports of his uninspired play at Florham Park this summer.
Maybe Bell will flip the switch come Week 1 and make this whole depressing conversation a distant memory. Or maybe the Jets paid top dollar ($13 million annually) for a third-string talent on his last NFL legs. For the sake of all involved, including Gase, who probably needs a .500 or better season to keep his job, let’s hope it’s the former.
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