The Steelers remain in the dark regarding running back Le’Veon Bell’s plans for next Tuesday’s final deadline for showing up and playing in 2018. The team’s owner is equally in the dark, but he thinks he knows what will happen.
“I don’t know what his plans are, but I would say at this point we expect him to come back next week,” Art Rooney II said on SiriusXM NFL Radio, via NFL.com. “We know he’s back in Pittsburgh and so we’re hoping to have some communications with him over the weekend and we’re kind of expecting he will be back next week.”
Bell previously has said he plans to play this year, but that was before he and his agent realized that Bell possibly can skip all of the season and still force the Steelers to apply the quarterback franchise tender in 2019. Now that Bell, who has missed 10 weeks (and lost $8.55 million in pay), realizes that he could guarantee a shot at the open market by giving up roughly $6 million more, maybe he won’t show up.