Bell ringer
Le’Veon: Tumultuous Jets tenure ‘helped’ as focus turns to boxing
Le’Veon Bell knows his experience with the Jets ultimately helped him.
He didn’t particularly enjoy going through it, however.
Bell signed a four-year, $52 million contract with the Jets in 2019 after five standout seasons as a star NFL running back with the Steelers ended in a contract dispute. He surpassed 1,200 total yards from scrimmage and had at least eight total touchdowns in four of those five seasons, and was named First-Team All-Pro twice.
With the Jets, on the other hand, he struggled on a 7-9 squad under head coach Adam Gase. He recorded 1,250 yards from scrimmage, but had just 789 rushing yards on 3.2 yards per carry, and failed to surpass 100 rushing yards in any of the 15 games he played. He recorded four total touchdowns.
Just five weeks into Bell’s second season with the team, new general manager Joe Douglas cut him after he was unable to find a trade partner.
Gase, who was fired after the 2020 season, reportedly opposed signing Bell from the outset, and ex-general manager Mike Maccagnan ended up being fired just two months after the running back was signed.
The rocky relationship between Gase and Bell played out publicly, and came to a boiling point prior to his release. During training camp that year, after Gase told reporters he held Bell out of an intrasquad scrimmage due to a tight hamstring, the running back posted on Twitter that he had no such injury. That prompted a sitdown between the two. After a 30-10 loss to the Cardinals on Oct. 11, 2020, Gase denounced Bell’s decision to like various tweets suggesting he was being misused in the offense.
Now two years removed, Bell said he sees his Jets tenure as necessary to his identity.
“It is what it is,” Bell told The Post as he prepared to make his professional boxing debut Saturday night (9 p.m., Showtime PPV) in a four-round cruiserweight bout with former MMA fighter Uriah Hall in Glendale, Ariz. “Obviously I think it helped form [me] to where I am today. So I don’t regret not a day that went by that I was with New York. At the time, during the time when I was there, obviously I was upset with the way things were going, the coaches, things like that, that’s why my time there wasn’t that long, I wasn’t very happy there. But, I think that all kind of helped me transpire to where I am today.”
He shares a similar sentiment toward his time with the Steelers, which also ended in controversy. Unable to agree to a longterm deal, and refusing to play on the franchise tag, Bell infamously held out and missed the entire 2018 season. When he signed with the Jets a year later, he notably received less money than he had demanded from, and had been offered by, the Steelers. Given another chance, he wouldn’t change a thing. “I’m at peace with it,” Bell said. “I’m good. I just feel like I’ve moved on. I understand all those things that happened in my football career, and leading up to this moment, it’s all been helpful and I needed it all. I needed to embrace it all to help me be who I am today.”
After the Jets released him, Bell finished the 2020 season with the Chiefs before playing briefly with both the Ravens and Buccaneers last year. He has not attempted to play since.
Although he embraces his Jets tenure, his former team’s fast start this year has gone unnoticed as Bell “has not watched a second of football.” Entirely caught up with his new career inside the ring, Bell has left his previous career — and so much of what dominated his life — behind, instead carrying football’s lessons to his new endeavor.
“All the way [committed to boxing], 100 percent,” Bell said. “There’s really no turning back. I’ve been getting offers and calls about trying to join a team and there’s been offers on the table, and I obviously haven’t been entertaining anything because of where I am now and how I feel. I don’t want to take that chance of even veering off my focus of boxing. So I haven’t even entertained trying to join the NFL or anything like that. I’ve just been solely focused on boxing, and I haven’t even been paying attention to football at all.”