Bell’s delay to sign may give Steelers intriguing options

$14,544,000 in salary cap room to go after free agents.

How? It’s the one gift Bell gave them in this whole scenario. The tag forced the Steelers to create that cap space and while the tag is still on Bell, they have little room to do anything else. But it does not preclude them from shoppingin free agency.

Say they negotiate with a few free agent backs such as Isaiah Crowell of the Cleveland Browns, Dion Lewis of the New England Patriots or Carlos Hyde of the San Francisco 49ers. At the same time, they could negotiate with inside linebackers such as Avery Williamson of the Tennessee Titans. If they could come to terms with a back and a linebacker, they could rescind the franchise tag on Bell, set him free and use some of that cap room on those two positions.

It’s not something they’ve ever done because they always believed that putting the franchise or transition tag on a player was a commitment by them. But the rules allow them to rescind the deal if Bell does not sign it. The rules also allowed Bell to stay away last year until he did sign it.

A good free-agent back should cost less than $6 million annually, and Williams $9 million. There’s Bell’s money, on average, but the cap number for those two would be far lower in 2018, perhaps as little as $8 million for both. They would still have cap room to keep shopping,maybe for a safety.

If the Steelers signed good free agents at two or three of those positions, they could go into the draft with the pressure off to do it all with rookies. They still could draft another back and safety, and should draft another inside linebacker.

And guess what? All of those players — the free agents and the draft picks — would join their new teammates for spring practices, training camp and the entire preseason. They would be ready to go to start the regularseason in 2018.

That is what the Steelers could have instead of tying up all that cap room in one player who has threatened not only to stay away the entire preseason again but to holdout all year. It’s probably an idle threat that he would give up more than $900,000 weekly once the season begins, but why deal with all of that and the inevitable slow start to the regular season again?

Bell has been one of the great backs in the NFL over his first five seasons, and the Steelers recognized that with contract offers in each of the past two years that would make him the highest-paid back in the game by more than$5 million annually.

He turned them down, yet wrote on Twitter that “I love everything about being a Pittsburgh Steeler, and I want nothing more than to finish the rest of my career in Pitt.”

His actions say he does want more — more money. Although it’s tough to part with great players, the options for the Steelers if they do move on appear to be good ones. The Dallas Cowboys did that under different circumstances with Herschel Walker in 1989 to stock their team. They then drafted Emmitt Smith in 1990 and went on to win three Super Bowls in four years.