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Updated 10 hours ago
This is what ESPN's Adam Schefter published on Le'Veon Bell Sunday morning.
The story was buried in an avalanche of discussions about the Steelers' return to Jacksonville and, of course, the potential dawn of Condoleezza Rice training in Cleveland.
But it's worth reading.
"The Steelers and Le'Veon Bell have both lobbied for an agreement that would have brought him back to Pittsburgh this season, but neither side has been able to finalize an agreement," ESPN told ESPN. sources close to the league.
"The Steelers have learned that if they are prepared not to use their franchise or transitional label on Bell after this season, it would consider reporting to the team," sources said. But the Steelers refused Bell's request because they felt the label was too important to abandon. "
This seems to me to be something that has been leaked by Bell's agent, Adisa Bakari, or by someone from this camp to "league sources".
Why? Because the result gives the Steelers a restrictive and mean-spirited look at the importance of a label next year, Bell will not be on the list for the rest of the season.
Such a characterization would give the Steelers a particularly negative image if something were to happen to James Conner.
I find it hard to believe that this source is quite accurate. I imagine that some mutual insurance has not been respected by Bell. The word "consider" is terribly loud in the second sentence, is it not?
Part of the reason I'm skeptical about this source is that I do not know why the Steelers would jeopardize Bell's listing on the list of candidates as a $ 5 million insurance policy for Conner under pretext to mark it next year.
The Steelers will not be compensated if they are in transition. And if it's franchised or in transition, then in any case the Steelers do not benefit from all of the space carried over from the salary cap in 2019.
Also, consider what they've experienced this year with Bakari and Bell. Do not forget that they now understand what Conner can give them as a starting point. These factors suggest to me that the Steelers would not be inclined to give Bell so much money next year.
Aside from Sunday's poor performance of Conner, what would it mean for the Steelers to rake in at least $ 9 million on a player whose job was properly performed by a guy who was to earn $ 844,572 next year? against the cap?
This figure is still lower than Bell loses a week staying out this year.
From this point of view, this suggestion as to the failure of the ultimate negotiations does not make much sense.
The only logic that allows the Steelers to adopt such an uncompromising attitude to keeping the label on the table is that they want to win against Conner in flames from the latter part of the year or suffering a serious injury that will eat in its availability to begin 2019.
In other words, the principle would have been: "Bring Bell back for the second half of this season and potentially for the playoffs. Along the way, if it turns out to be even better than Conner, slap it back on him and restart the whole process during the off season. "
For me, this sounds like a lot of work, stress and uncertainty for a team that just made a third round pick without starting experience can get into this attack and be as productive as the guy who has a lot more to Wear his body and wants 40 times the salary.
As we mentioned on this page, some founders claimed that the Steelers had less confidence in Conner than in Bell. For a good reason, based on antecedents.
These concerns, however, began to disappear in the previous five weeks, when the Steelers began to entrust Conner with a workload similar to Bell's, regardless of the circumstances. Perhaps by coincidence, this corresponds to a series of five games without defeat.
That stretch improved to six on Sunday, while Conner had just 25 yards in nine races against Jacksonville. This week's game featured two crucial drops in the Pitt product. And he did not receive the ball at all in the final sequence of the winning goal line.
Does this prove that the Steelers trust level with Conner is flat? Probably not. And this is certainly not enough proof that the Steelers feel compelled to add to the Bell brand next season.
I am more inclined to believe that only one aspect of history is represented in this ESPN report. And I am more likely to believe that the Steelers would have been perfectly willing to agitate the labels if Bell were willing to give assurances as to its duration in terms of practice time, punctuality, diligence and compliance with the rules. Depth map was coming back for the last few weeks.
And my bet is that Bell did not want to give some of that back.
Tim Benz is an editor of Tribune-Review. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter @ TimbenzPGH.
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