LE’VEON IN A SUPER SPOT
Bell, after Jet divorce, now a Chief
Le’Veon Bell rid himself of football’s foulest stench and came out smelling like roses during a surreal week that will go down in the football annals. Four days after the perennial Pro Bowler was trapped inside the league’s most dysfunctional organization, he landed on a juggernaut led by the NFL’s best player and coach.
Bell went from Adam Gase to Andy Reid, which is like dying and going to football heaven. The former Jets running back agreed to a deal with the Chiefs just two days after the Jets cut him. Bell became the latest lucky player to escape the clutches of this lost franchise that has become a punchline across the league.
“Kansas City, #ChiefsKingdown, thank you for the opportunity,” Bell tweeted
Thursday night with a photoshopped image in a Chiefs uniform. “let’s go!”
Days after Bell’s frustration bubbled to the surface after Gase’s latest broken promise to better utilize his varied skillset, he landed on the reigning Super Bowl champions alongside Patrick Mahomes.
Truth be told, Bell is now the envy of nearly everyone at his position, poised to make another run at the Lombardi Trophy. Gase, meanwhile, is hoping his 0-5 club doesn’t get embarrassed in Miami for a second consecutive season after the Dolphins fired him not so long ago.
Bell, coming off a nightmarish season with Gase, took the high road for the better part of a year-andhalf as his coach disparaged him at nearly every turn behind closed doors. Then, enough was enough.
Gase’s disingenuous bent became too much for the former superstar. He wanted out like so many others who learned that playing for this coach was a lost cause.
General manager Joe Douglas’ inability to trade Bell earlier in the week prompted him to hit the eject button. It was a lose-lose for the Douglas & Co., who forked over a chunk of Bell’s remaining salary for 2020 without getting anything in return in the form of draft compensation or a player that could help this sinking ship.
“For whatever reason, it didn’t work out,” said Gase as everyone else knew exactly why it didn’t work out. “I’m sure he’ll get an opportunity somewhere else and we’ll see what happens.”
Bell, who returned from I.R. last week with a hamstring injury, finds himself in a familiar place of playing meaningful games again. He was played in plenty of them in Pittsburgh before being pushed to the margins in his 17 games with the Jets.
None of that is his concern anymore. The 4-1 Chiefs travel to the Bills for a Monday night showdown to highlight Week 6 on the NFL calendar. It’s unclear whether Bell will be ready to play in that primetime showdown, but he’ll certainly be ready when the Jets come to Arrowhead Stadium on November 1.
“I was shocked,” said Jets wide receiver Breshad Perriman about Bell getting cut. “Le’Veon was a great teammate. Wherever he lands, I hope he balls out.”
Bell joins an explosive Kansas City offense that includes Pro Bowlers Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce and touted rookie Clyde Edwards-Helaire.
Reid, an actual brilliant mind who’s coaching football to where it’s going, will undoubtedly find creative ways to maximize Bell’s skillset as a running back and pass catcher. With Mahomes as the trigger man, there’s no telling how much Bell will help.
Bell enters this season hoping for great things and proving that the player that people remembered in Pittsburgh was still alive and well.
Now, that he’s gotten far away from the NFL’s laughingstock, anything is possible.