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Two-plus years after last taking a snap in the National Football League, 31-year old Le’Veon Bell is hinting at a comeback.
Through a series of social media posts during the week leading up to Super Bowl 58, Bell made mention of wanting to return to the gridiron while also alluding to having the urge to do so with one team in particular.
“I just know I didn’t close my chapter to my book correctly yet,” he said. “I want to do it the right way, I want to make sure I go out on the terms where people remember me on the high note that I was.”
Bell last played in 2021 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after spending part of the year with the Baltimore Ravens.
In fact, Bell played with four different teams in the last two seasons in very limited action. He hasn’t played double-digit games in a season since 2019 with the New York Jets. In five of his first six NFL seasons.
Three of those seasons were 1,000-yard seasons. In those double-digit games played seasons, the two-time All-Pro recorded more than 6,000 yards while never tallying less than 244 carries in any of those years. Moreover, he posted more than 300 touches four times with a high of 406 in 2017 which was his final season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“I feel like there’s no better team to [return] with than the obvious team,” he said. “I just want to showcase what I’m able to do and obviously shock the world, that’s what I want to do.”
In a now deleted post, Bell’s account sent out a tweet that said, ‘Lemme shoot Coach T a text real quick.’ Coach T is believed to be a reference to Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin who Bell previously said he’d only return to play for.
Despite being away from football for two full seasons, Bell has stayed active through boxing. He made his in-ring debut in August 2022 with a celebrity boxing match against fellow NFL running back Adrian Peterson, whom he defeated by technical knockout.
As a professional, he has posted a 1-1 record with both endings coming by unanimous decision.
“Boxing kept that chip on my shoulder,” he said. “Boxing is so incredibly insane so training for boxing helps me stay in extra cardiovascular shape. I think once I transfer back over to football and put cleats on, it’s all going to be the same.”
While watching his former league from the sidelines, he’s been closely monitoring the current state of the running back position. In 2018, Bell opted to sit out the season after declining to sign the franchise tag with the Steelers during a contract dispute. Fast forward to this past offseason and he along with the rest of the world watched the Tennessee Titans’ Derrick Henry start a group chat with fellow running backs in an effort to collaboratively tackle ways to address getting proper compensation on lucrative deals for the position.
“It’s a movie called ‘A Bug’s Life’ and I was comparing myself to Flick,” Bell said. “Flick was the one ant to stand up to the grasshoppers himself and I was the one running back to stand up to the owners. Now, it’s starting to be an army of ants.
“We need more ants basically in order to stand up for the grasshoppers to back down. It’s going to take more than me and just the running backs to help the running back market.”
However the message gets broached, Bell is just holding out hope for one thing: fairness. Even if it takes looking to other leagues as the blueprint.”
“Kind of like the NBA,” he said. “If you’re first team, it doesn’t matter if you’re a point guard or if you’re a center. It doesn’t matter, if you’re a first team all-player you get paid this [amount]. I feel like the NFL is not fair in that aspect, they try to categorize and place [worth] on the position.”
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