Is Le’Veon fired up? Bell yeah!
Le'Veon Bell is bursting at the seams, ready to re-introduce himself to a viewing audience that put him out to pasture after a regrettable first season with the Jets. Bell is a special talent, a gamewrecking force that can help Gang Green's greater good. He's a centerpiece — not a complimentary piece — that can make Sam Darnold the player that everyone in the Jets universe desperately wants him to become.
He just needs his head coach to give him a real chance.
“I know this,” Adam Gase said this week, “He's not a guy that I would ever doubt, just seeing what he's done throughout his career. I'm excited to get him going on the field.”
Although Gase didn't want to sign Bell last year — and the Jets weren't able to move him at the trade deadline or this offseason due to the player's exorbitant contract — that shouldn't matter now.
It's incumbent upon Gase to use this incredible asset to his advantage.
Bell might be 28, but he still has enough juice left to be a difference maker in 2020. He might never replicate his jaw-dropping numbers from his Pittsburgh heyday, but he's certainly good enough to be a significant con- tributor this season.
“I'm a Ticking Time Bomb,” Bell tweeted this month. “I'm bout to launch on 7/28/20.”
Bell is plenty motivated after the worst season of his career. The three-time Pro Bowler rushed for just 789 yards on a career-low 3.2 yards per carry. He didn't have a single run of 20 or more yards, a mind-boggling truth during a nightmarish campaign.
“Even though we have a ton of meeting time still left, I think he's ready to get on the field and start doing stuff,” Gase said. “Just knowing that what I saw at last training camp and at the beginning of the year, I think we have a lot to build on. I think his knowledge of the system is completely different than it was last year. There'll be a lot less thinking and a lot more reacting.”
Therein lies the problem. It shouldn't be about Bell's improved understanding of Gase's offense. It should be about Gase tailoring a system that accentuates this player's skillset.
Winning coaches develop offenses to best fit their personnel rather than force personnel to conform to a pre-determined plan. The coached wanted Bell to fit into his scheme instead of tailoring a system around the player's prodigious skills last season.
It predictably failed.
The best way for Bell to thrive in 2020 is if Gase is flexible.
Bell's struggles last season were largely due to the head coach's stubbornness. Strip away the noise and here's what's left: Gase simply didn't deploy Bell properly last year.
Pointing to Bell's total touches (245 carries and 66 catches) misses the point. The Jets curiously didn't play to Bell's strengths.
He ran out of shotgun 43 percent of the time last year. By comparison, he ran out of shotgun just 27 percent of the time in his final season with the Steelers when he amassed 1,291 yards and a career-high nine touchdowns.
Bell will be playing behind his third different offensive line in his last three years on the field. The Jets will have at least three new starters up front, which will make it more challenging to breathe life into an offense that languished near the bottom of nearly every meaningful statistical category last season.
The Jets believe that they have athletic enough tackles now to employ more outside-zone runs for Bell. That would be a step in the right direction.
“I HOPE we play football this year…” Bell tweeted recently. “I can't even express it to you! You'll never understand but just wait, you gon see.”
The Jets have a great player waiting to be unleashed again.
Just use him the right way.