Bell misses deadline, won’t play
PITTSBURGH — Le’veon Bell’s patience on the football field sets him apart.
In a game built on chaos, the star running back rarely hurries or makes hasty decisions.
His ability to put his hand on the back of an offensive lineman while waiting for the hole to open — much like a child sticking close to a parent in a crowded store — helps him make the remarkably difficult at times look remarkably easy.
His career at a crossroads partly of his own making, Bell will have to rely on that patience now more than ever after the two-time All-pro declined to sign his one-year, $14.4 million franchise tender with the Pittsburgh Steelers by Tuesday’s deadline, making him ineligible to play this season.
The unprecedented move sets up Bell for the potentially big-time payday he has long been searching when he becomes a free agent in the spring, provided there is a team willing to splurge on one of the league’s more talented if mercurial players.
While TV cameras set up outside the team’s practice facility on Tuesday to catch Bell if he decided to show for work for the first time in nearly 10 months, the 26-year-old never pulled to the gates, ending — for now — one of the more unusual labor standoffs between a team and a player in the era of free agency.
Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin seemed resigned to Bell’s decision, saying simply “so be it” when asked about the possibility of Bell not returning to the team that selected him in the second round of the 2013 draft and helped mold him into one of the league’s most dynamic threats.
“Even when we don’t understand it, we’re sensitive to it, so we’re not shocked when things happen from a business standpoint, no,” Tomlin said.
The Steelers (6-2-1), who have won five straight to sprint to the top of the division heading into a visit to Jacksonville on Sunday, will turn to second-year back James Conner and reserves Stevan Ridley and rookie Jaylen Samuels.
Conner, third in the NFL with
771 yards rushing, remained in the concussion protocol Tuesday after leaving last Thursday’s blowout win against Carolina.
He could practice as early as Wednesday.