While we still don’t know exactly when Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell will ultimately sign his $12.12 million franchise tag tender and report to the team, a Thursday morning report indicates that will happen sometime prior to the 2017 regular season getting underway.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, Bell will report back to team before the 2017 regular season kicks off, though it remains unclear exactly when, per a source of his.
Well, that definitely provides some clarity, right?
It’s pretty much been a given that Bell will sign his tender and report for duty prior to the start of the regular season as the running back stands to lose almost $715,000 of salary for each week missed come that time. Whatever point he’s been trying to make since July 17 has fallen on deaf ears and moving past the Steelers second preseason game he’ll need to start thinking about getting himself back into football shape as well as getting himself up to speed on any changes with the offense.
Over the course of the last several weeks and especially since training camp got underway, Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert and head coach Mike Tomlin have been adamant about saying how it would be in Bell’s best interest to report for duty sooner rather than later. Additionally, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said recently during an interview that Bell can’t simulate football shape while working on his own.
While Schefter’s Thursday report about Bell looks nice on Twitter, there’s still no official word as to when the running back will actually show up and start preparing with the rest of his teammates for the start of the 2017 season. Will it be almost immediately after Sunday’s preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons, after the preseason finale against the Carolina Panthers, or sometime in between? Nobody seems to know for sure right now and that’s all that really matters.
