Jets Ex Le'Veon Bell Planning NFL Comeback?
A new addition to the NFL's free agency ledgers might ring a Bell.
Three-time Pro Bowl rusher Le'Veon Bell announced his apparent intentions to stage an NFL comeback in a series of posts to his Snapchat story over the weekend. Bell, who turns 32 in two weeks, played nine NFL seasons to date, including parts of two with the New York Jets.
"I'm going to be honest with myself, I got to go out there and be like, I'm going to put my foot in the ground," Bell said in the videos, captured by Alex Kozura of Steelers Depot. "Do I feel it? Am I hurting? Can I go out there and really play again? Bro, I'm telling you all right now when I go out there and train in March and if I hit April and I make this decision to come back to play in the NFL again, mark my words down, I will be better than I ever was."
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Bell is best known for his time with the Pittsburgh Steelers (2013-17), where he put up 5,336 yards and 35 scores on the ground over five seasons in black and yellow. That was good for third in the league behind only LeSean McCoy and DeMarco Murray in that span.
After a contract dispute kept him off the field for the entirety of the 2018 season, Bell inked a four-year, $52.5 million contract with the Jets. Injuries, inconsistency, and a confrontational relationship with then-head coach Adam Gase rendered the union doomed from the start: Bell would play only 17 games in a Jets uniform and was released by the team in mid-October 2020.
The Michigan State alum embarked upon a nomadic career after that, spending the rest of the 2020 season in Kansas City before splitting 2021 between Baltimore and Tampa Bay. With his gridiron career sidelined, Bell briefly made headlines in September 2022, when he earned a technical knockout victory in a boxing match against fellow former star rusher Adrian Peterson.
If Bell truly follows through on his comeback, don't expect redemption in green: Bell made a point of apologizing to Steelers fans in another video posted last season and indirectly vowed to wear only one logo sticker on his helmet if and when he takes the field again.
"I will only come back for that one team," Bell said. "You all know who it is. I don't have to say (any) team. You all know who it is."
Pittsburgh is included among the Jets' nine road opponents for the 2024 season. How interested the Steelers would be in Bell's proposition is anyone's guess: fresh off a 10-win season that yielded a brief playoff appearance, the Steelers' offense was frequently carried by the dual-rushing attack of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren, who united for 1,891 yards and 12 scores.
