Despite his continued absence, the Steelers won’t rescind Le’Veon Bell‘s franchise tag, a source told Ian Rapoport of NFL Network (Twitter link).
The drama reached new heights yesterday, when many of Bell’s teammates began criticizing him publicly. Several of his offensive linemen chimed in, a situation that is more or less unprecedented in today’s NFL. After yesterday’s fallout, many began to speculate that the Steelers would either rescind the tag, or look to trade Bell, but that’s not true according to Rapoport.
Despite GM Kevin Colbert’s strongly worded statement and the relentless griping from his teammates yesterday, “he’ll play for the Steelers this year. It’s just a question of when” writes Rapoport. While it was reported yesterday that Bell would almost certainly miss Week 1, it appears for now he still will be suiting up for Pittsburgh this season.
Bell missing yesterday’s crucial game-planning practice appeared to be the final straw for his teammates, and they lamented the fact that Bell hasn’t told anybody when he plans on reporting. Bell’s agent when on the radio a bit later in the day, and made clear that Bell’s primary motivation is getting through the season unscathed and entering free agency 100% healthy, even if it means giving up $855K game checks. It’s a risky move by Bell’s camp, and his antics could actually end up hurting his value in free agency.
Either way, it doesn’t sound like this situation will be resolving anytime soon.
Loser
The Steelers are playing this one smart. They know Bell isn’t worth what he wants . They also know the decline of running backs at age 30+.
Stand firm, trade him at week 4.
Isn’t worth what he wants. Good one lol.
Bell is 26 lol. A 5 year contract would take him to 31 and they could sign him without guarenteed money by the time he turns 30
Absolute scumbag. Cares about nobody but himself. I wouldn’t want him on my team. I don’t care how talented he is.
Scumbag. Geese. Calm down! They offered him a terrible contract. The guaranteed money wasn’t close to what Gurley got and he deserves better. The GM is the “scumbag”’if anyone is..absolutely taking advantage of this flawed franchise tag. They need to do swag with that crap or make it a one year thing.
They should do what the mlb does with the qualifying offers.
Where a player would be offered x amount and if he rejects he is a free agent and when signed the teams gets a draft pick for that draft
Natsfan..I agree!
Lol no one is a scumbag in both fronts. If your upset about Franchise tags, blame the players who pushed for it not the GM’s who figured out away how to exploit it. And a duh! You say a business man is taking advantage of a situation. It’s called he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t. Conversely Bell is trying to take advantage of the situation himself. If Bell’s smart he reports Saturday before 4:30. That way, the Steelers still have to pay him.
And then tell him at 4:31 that he’s gonna play Sunday, like it or not.
Terrible contract? You better go back and look at the team’s offer to Bell again. It is top level for a RB. It is just that Bell thinks he deserves some WR money on top for having to catch the ball.
MadmanTX…Terrible guaranteed money. Read what I said. Terrible contract in the fact the guaranteed money wasn’t even close to what Gurley got and he easily deserves as much or more!
Stats wise, Gurley is better. Plus, he’s younger. Bell is not doing himself any favors, but I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.
I would take Zeke , David Johnson, Gurley , Kamara , Cook or Hunt over him. I’ve said before and l
Say it again .. he’s selfish , greedy and shows his true character…
what do “geese” have to do with it?
He doesn’t want hundreds of more touches with 1 year of security. Thats pretty reasonable.
If you think so, have your team sign him. Enjoy his drug suspensions and his demands for a pay raise about a month after he signs. And you better hope your team has the blockers to make him look better than he really is. He’s not a generational player—his Steeler blockers are.
My team has Todd Gurley the highest paid RB and im cool with it. Without Bell and Big Ben when he retires the steelers will become irrelevant
Let’s see how they do this weekend? I doubt they run for 100 yards against the Browns.
Agreed
The Steelers aren’t any more of a “class” organization than any other NFL franchise.
1) They protected their QB after repeated sexual assaults.
2) They run their best player into the ground with 406 touches in 2017 – that’s SIXTY more than LeSean McCoy at number two! Bell played on good faith in 2017 expecting a long term deal and in return they abused his body and play hardball.
What would you do if your employer put $60 MILLION of your future salary at risk two years in a row?
He should make a stand and sit out the whole year before signing with a new team in 2019.
And his “teammates” should NEVER discuss another man’s contract in public.
Theres no need to pay rbs these ridiculous salaries that Bell is wanting. It sucks for him but if anyone looks back later on with regret it will be him
Keep the tag on him but let him live off nothing by not paying him a penny this whole season. If he wants to sit it out and wait for some sucker of a team to overpay him for next season, he can go right ahead.
He’ll return week 11, the season will be over for the Steelers and they’ll have “won” lol. They should have traded him but it’s the NFL.
Lev’s dollar store pot test kit keeps telling him to hold out a bit longer.
trade him to the nfc for 3 1st round draft picks
It’s gonna be great when this backfires and hurts his value on top of making him look like the selfish petulant child that he is.
The Steelers have created a culture where you don’t get to be part of the clique unless you swallow the kool-aid management serves. It’s not at all surprising Bell wants to go elsewhere after this season and get away from guys who would back stab you just to score points with the front office. Harrison was a victim of the same type of cheap shots when he opposed management. Antonio Brown can expect the same thing if he tries to get a record setting deal when his extension comes due.
You must have them confused with the patriots.
The Patriots recently gave Brady and Gronk bonuses and even if they hadn’t you would not see teammates bad mouthing them saying they were hurting the team by trying to get themselves a better deal.
AB already got his extension and he realized that the Steelers don’t set precedents so his guaranteed were on the low side and he said it didn’t matter cause his work ethic is going to force the Steelers to meet his incentives.
Bell’s problem is he wants to establish a new position but his agent should have told him the Steelers don’t play that game.
For everything he does great as far as catching passes and follow his extraordinary blockers with such patience for holes to open up he also doesn’t grind a fourth quarter out either.
I am not going to say this offseason’s contract offer was fair because it wasn’t but the contract offer the year before was more than fair and he turned it down. Why would he think a year later he was going to get an even better offer ?
The Steelers intentions were obviously to play these franchise years and let him go on his way when he didn’t sign the first offer. Combined that with the drafting of Rudolph it tells me the Steelers realize the window will be closing.
I understand all involved from the Oline to Bell to the FO but for me Bell can leave after this year at some point in time a player has to realize that when playing for the Steelers they don’t budge.
Ask Rod Woodson or Levon Kirkland or Guys like that you wanna play hardball the Steelers don’t play it and NOBODY is bigger than the team