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- Mar 19, 2019
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Ten games into his first season with the Jets, running back Le'Veon Bell isn’t having the kind of impact that he had in Pittsburgh. And he’s fine with that.
“I made a decision,” Bell recently told Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. “And I’ll live with it.”
He’ll live with it because, as not mentioned in the article, the Jets offered Bell — who sat out all of 2018 in lieu of playing under the franchise tag for a second season in Pittsburgh — significantly more money than anyone else was offering. Bell wanted to maximize his compensation for playing football, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Bell also remains hopeful that, in time, his New York production will improve.
“I feel like when I get those numbers here, people are going to look at me differently,” Bell said. “Like, dang, he didn’t even have to go to the Chiefs. He didn’t have to go to the Colts or whatever team has a high-powered offense. I didn’t have to go there to do it. I came here and helped this team turn around.”
But here’s the thing: It’s not as if the Chiefs or the Colts were in the mix to sign him. The 49ers were interested at a far lower number, and that was pretty much it.
“At the end of the day,” Bell said, “I’ve never been a person that really cares about trying to go to a team and joining a whole bunch of other good players.”
If so, he wouldn’t have chased the money to New York. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. He’ll get $27 million fully guaranteed through 2020, and he’ll take that from whoever wants to pay it.
That’s why he wasn’t miffed about a potential deadline deal to a new team last month. As long as someone will be paying Bell what he’s promised to make through 2020, he’ll play for whoever wants him.
For now, the Jets have him. And the Jets are going for their third win in a row, as the Raiders come to town for a game to be played in the rain and wind.