The Le’Veon Bell holdout lingers, with the player not showing up to get a free game check (possibly less than $855,000) for reporting during the Steelers’ Week Seven bye. It’s still not clear when, or if, he’ll return.
Either way, owner Art Rooney II doesn’t expect the Steelers to trade Bell to a new team.
Asked this week by NFL Network whether he thinks Bell could be traded, Rooney said, “I expect him to be a member of the team going forward. That’s my expectation.”
The question becomes moot if Bell doesn’t show up by Tuesday, October 30. After that, he can’t be traded in 2018, even if the Steelers wanted to make a deal.
Bell has until the Tuesday after Week 10 to show up, sign his franchise tender, fulfill his contractual requirements for 2018, and set the stage for hitting the market in 2019, with the maximum potential restriction being the transition tender. The transition tag would simply give the Steelers a chance to match an offer sheet Bell signs with another team. With James Conner due to make only $668,000 for all of 2019, it would be hard to imagine the Steelers matching a market-value offer to Bell.
“James is a darn good football player,” Rooney told NFL Network. “Happy to have him.”
Moving forward, the challenge will be to get Conner signed to an acceptable long-term deal before repeating the franchise-tag dance with Bell. The window on doing that opens after the 2019 regular season ends.
For now, the long-term window for Bell in Pittsburgh seems to be closed. At this point, the only question is how the remaining loose ends get resolved.
