So you’re saying there’s a chance?
Late Monday, I passed along a report made earlier in the day by Stan Savran of 970 ESPN Radio which stated that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell allegedly missed “several” drug tests due to him changing his phone number. Whether or not that’s true is still unknown, however, but judging by a Tuesday morning report by John Clayton of ESPN, it does appear as though Bell has a fighting chance to win his appeal of his reported four-game suspension.
Clayton writes:
“Le’Veon Bell does have chance to maybe get out of his suspension if the drug tester didn’t make good contact to schedule his test.”
Clayton went on to say, “On the Bell story, missing a test is the same as failing a test, but the tester has to show he made good effort to contact. Still, Bell might find it hard to win this case, but he’s going to try.”
Now, that’s not much to go on, but it does somewhat jive with Savran’s report that Bell changed his phone number. We’ll see.
Late Sunday night, Bell posted a reply on his Instagram account which stated he was confident he would win his appeal and thus not miss any games this upcoming season. Since then, however, Bell has deleted those social media comments.
We’ll have to wait and see how all of this ultimately plays out and it will be interesting to see if Bell ultimately comments on the changed phone number report on Thursday when he reports to Saint Vincent College in Latrobe for the start of Steelers training camp. Until then, hold the phone and don’t change your number.
