Barring a huge surprise at this point, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell will miss all of this years training camp and that’s not overly surprising. While Bell has been away from Saint Vincent College and reportedly continuing to train for the upcoming season in Miami, both general manager Kevin Colbert and head coach Mike Tomlin haven’t been shy about saying how the running back is doing himself a disservice by not participating in training camp.
Monday morning, Tomlin was a guest on 93.7 The Fan and predictably he was asked to update the current status of Bell and if he’s likely to sign his franchise tag in the near future and report to the team.
“I have no idea when he’s going to show up,” Tomlin said. “I need him here yesterday. Not only for us, but for him. And that’s my opinion. This team development process, this preseason, this work that we’re doing out here is very much a part of overall game readiness. He’s a tremendous athlete, he’s highly conditioned, but this is football out here and you cant simulate that. So, my opinion is I need him here yesterday, but I don’t always get what I want. So, when he gets here, we’ll deal with it and move forward.”
At this point, you can probably go ahead and forget about Bell playing in the Steelers second preseason game this Sunday at Heinz Field against the Atlanta Falcons. After that game takes place, it will be interesting to see if he signs his tender and reports to the team in order to play in the team’s proverbial tune-up preseason game against the Indianapolis Colts. If he doesn’t, there’s a good chance his first game action wont be until the regular season opener against the Cleveland Browns.
While Tomlin has said in recent weeks that he’s been in contact with Bell throughout this process, it doesn’t sound like he’s talked to him recently.
“Yeah, it depends on how you define constant [contact], but at this point its been a few days,” Tomlin said Monday morning.
