It hasn't been a weekly preoccupation. There were tweets from Le'Veon Bell following the opener against Cleveland that made it obvious he was watching his erstwhile teammates, again when they came back to defeat Cincinnati in mid-October and several more after he had returned to Pittsburgh and the Steelers were wrecking NFC contender Carolina.
Toward the end of that game, Bell sent out this message: “I think it's safe to say it's time to pass the sticks."
This was taken by some to mean he was ready to accept the game controller from current Steelers star running back James Conner and carry it the rest of the way.
It now seems possible he was watching the game from a Buffalo Wild Wings and simply wanted more fried cheese.
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Bell claimed he wanted to be a "Steeler for life" about as many times as he carried and caught the football since joining the team as a second-round pick in 2013. But he undermined that alleged ambition by standing on a principle so obtuse that apologists in the media have invented myriad definitions for him.
— It’s an attempt to re-set the free-agent running back market. (The Steelers’ 2017 offer would have done that, by about 50 percent).
— It’s a protest against the franchise tag. (Odd, because he signed it once, and because he could have avoided it by signing generous multi-year contracts in either 2017 or ’18).
— It’s about the lack of guaranteed money. (Much of what's reported on this has been illogical, including Bell’s suggestion to ESPN that he'd have been guaranteed only $16 million. If the signing bonus were the reported $11 million, they'd have had to cut him on the way to his first practice for him to get that little.)
The reality is the Steelers consistently keep the players they sign to long-term deals through at least three seasons, more often beyond. Lamar Woodley’s performance crumbled in the second and third years of his long-term deal, from an average of 12 sacks per year to 4.5. But the team didn't bail until that point. Goodness, even safety Mike Mitchell lasted four years. Chris Hoke, who won two Super Bowls with the team and now appears regularly as an analyst on 93.7 The Fan, said Wednesday that "if you give your heart and soul to the team," the Steelers are an organization that will honor your contract.
A "Steeler for life" would recognize the integrity of the franchise that employed him.
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Presenting any of those above theories to defend Bell's capriciousness is preposterous, because pursuing any of those goals would require a plan. Bell had no defined plan. It was obvious right up until the 4 p.m. ET Tuesday deadline for him to sign the franchise tag.
When that moment passed, Bell officially became a former Steeler. One could say, for the time being, he became a former professional football player.
He will not appear wearing anyone's uniform in the 2018 season. This is an astonishing development given the level of commitment the Steelers were willing to make to him — essentially 8 percent of their salary cap, more than four times what the team would pay each player if all got an equal share of the standard $177.2 million — and the amount of money Bell has declined in the summer of 2017, the summer of 2018 and over the first 10 weeks of the current season by refusing to accept the franchise tag.
It's also astonishing because Bell had given, on so many occasions including the last, every indication that he intended on playing in 2018. His agent said during the summer that he expected Le'Veon to report before the opening game and play under the franchise tag “unless something exceptional happens." Bell did not report. Bell himself told ESPN at the start of October that he would join the team, and a source clarified that would occur during the Steelers' bye week in advance of the Oct. 28 game against the Browns. He didn't show. Then came the reports that he would wait until after the Oct. 30 trade deadline so he couldn't be shopped and could play where he preferred. It passed. So did he. Then he packed up his flip-flops and headed back from Miami to Pittsburgh, suggesting he would sign in advance of Tuesday’s deadline. Nope.
"I miss football," Bell told ESPN in early October. "When I do get back, I plan to give it my all. I still do want to go out and win a Super Bowl with the Steelers."
The Steelers loved Le'Veon Bell. They loved him to the point they overvalued him. They overvalued him by offering a contract in 2017 that, on an annual basis, would have paid him roughly 50 percent more than the next highest-paid running back at the time. They overvalued him by slapping the franchise tag on him for 2018 rather than the non-exclusive franchise tag, which would have allowed Bell to negotiate with other teams but would have brought the Steelers two first-round picks had another team signed him. They didn't want to lose him, and they wanted to be fair, because they loved him. And they overvalued him by offering him still more money in 2018, a reported five-year, $70 million deal that he also declined.
They loved him despite his obvious flaws. He started two of his five seasons on suspensions, missing two games at the start of the 2015 season and three more at the start of 2016. He missed most or all of the decisive playoff games in three consecutive seasons. In all, he was absent for nearly a quarter of the games the Steelers played, not counting the two he rested because their playoff position had been determined. And he was reportedly late to a walk-through before the Jacksonville playoff game last season, and he spent the week in advance of that game publicly griping about his contract status. In his most recent season, he did not break a single 30-yard run.
That did not dissuade the Steelers.
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It is conceivable that another team could offer Bell a contract for 2019 and beyond with the sort of guarantees he sought from the Steelers — three years, probably at least $45 million — and he and his media cheerleaders will declare that a victory. Which would be like calling the Falcons the champions of Super Bowl 51.
Yep, it'd be a lie. Because, again, Bell would have reached that figure as a Steeler, so long as he didn't do anything stupid like get himself suspended again, and he wouldn't have had to sacrifice a full year of his prime to do it.
The only way he makes up for this lost season, and all that lost money, is if someone throws up $20 million a year over those first three years. Is there somebody stupid enough in the NFL to do that? Probably. But is there someone crazy enough?
