Jets Express Interest In Le’Veon Bell

The Jets have reached out to the Steelers about trading for Le’Veon Bell, according to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. The Jets have become the first known team, but certainly not last, to inquire on the superstar running back. 

The Jets have yet to make a concrete offer for Bell, but they believe the Steelers are serious about moving him, Mehta hears. Bell is set to miss the third game of the season when the Steelers face the Bucs on Monday night, and with no end to his holdout in sight, the Steelers recently opened up the phone lines for trade discussion.

This offseason, the Steelers hit Bell with the franchise tag for the second straight year. He’s under contract for 2018 with his one-year, $14.54MM placeholder (or, rather, the prorated portion of that), but any team acquiring Bell will have to wait until the season is over before negotiating an extension with him. For that reason, Bell’s trade value is capped for Pittsburgh. Any team acquiring Bell will have to lock him up to a mammoth contract to keep him in the long run while having no assurances of that deal coming together.

The Steelers would likely receive a third-round compensatory pick in 2020 by keeping Bell and allowing him to leave as a free agent next offseason, but that’s not a guarantee due to the complex comp pick formula. Instead, the Steelers would prefer to net a 2019 third-round choice – or perhaps even settle for a ’19 fourth-round pick.

The Jets have not had a running back of Bell’s talent level in his prime since the days of Curtis Martin, so they’d surely love to add Bell for the right price.

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