Le'Veon Bell - 2018

That was not my question. Have you ever played on a team?

 

Yes but not for money as a career.

 

Betting on himself. Will he pull off a Joe Flacco and score a huge contract after this season or will he become Nerlens Noel, who turned down 70 mil from the Mavs last year to sign a 1 yr 2.5 mil deal this year. Time will tell

 

Love the Joe Flacco analogy.

 

It went from everyone wanting to sign him to everyone wanting him off the team in 48 hours time. Only a chciwy idiota would piss all over the opportunity to run behind this line and play for this team. He's a great player but he must be nacpany to think he's better off elsehwere.

 

After seeing Brandon Cooks get 16+ million, Bell has a legitimate beef about RB salaries. No way on Gods green earth is Cooks worth more than Bell.

 

He will be a 3rd round comp pick value, but it will depend on if you do anything else in free agency. If you say, sign a high profile LB, he could cancel out the comp pick.

 

Here's the thing. If the 5yr, 70M contract offer is legit he basically got the same deal as AB - which is what he said he wanted. AB signed for 5yrs, 72.7M. It was reported as 17M per season because that's just how they report those things. He added 4 yrs and 68M to what he was already owed so everyone says 17M per year in new money.

Old Deal
2017 4.7M

New Money Added
68M

Structure of New Contract
2017 19.9M
2018 13.875M
2019 15.125M
2020 11.30M
2021 12.5M

Total 72.7M spread out over 5 years.

Leveon is a fool.

 

I read only $10M guaranteed...if true I can see why he turned it down

 

Ive read that as well and if thats true that means he was guaranteed less than McCoy ($18 Mil), Freemen ($17 Mil) and McKinnon ($11.7 Mil).

 

Ya terrible offer if true

 

Only a guy like Richard Sherman would accept that offer.

 

It was reported by Ian Rappaport, who doesn’t exactly have the greatest track record with accuracy in reporting facts...and with this team, those first 3 years were practically guaranteed because that’s how the Steelers have operated. Granted that doesn’t mean things couldn’t change, but I didn’t think it was worth it to the team to cut him before the forth year anyways. I’d be pretty surprised if Bell was only offered $10 million guaranteed though

 

If Bell was only offered 10 million guaranteed he should be glad. He was suspended twice for refer, teams don’t want to guarantee possible problem players.

 

Rapoport is an idiot. Think about what he is proposing for a second. Leveon is guaranteed 14.5M if he just signs his tag. And he thinks the Steelers offered 10? In the last 5 years...

Ben Roethlisberger 31M
Antonio Brown 19M
David DeCastro 16M
Cam Heyward 15M
Maurkice Pouncey 13M
Stephon Tuitt 13M

... and the Steelers had leverage on all those guys. They were done prior to their contract expiring.

The Steelers modus operandi is to guarantee the first year of the deal and no more. That generally means the signing bonus and nothing else and considering Leveon was already on the books for 14.5M that means at the very least the signing bonus would have to be 15M. More likely it was in the AB range of 19M so they had a healthy proration to keep his salary down this year.

 

If that is how the Steelers deal then sorry, Bell was never going to sign. Might as well keep taking the tag. It's the only move.

 

All the guys above took it because they know the Steelers don't cut guys they've give a 2nd contract to after one season. It's never happened and honestly the cap would never allow them to do it even if they decided to change their strips. Heck, Lamarr Woodley busted as bad as any 2nd contract player could have and lasted 3 years collecting 27M.

 

Also, 33M in the first two years is more than competitive, even if a larger portion was only guaranteed for injury.

 

Didn't Suh get 14mill? I see Bell's point. Too bad the Steelers can't
afford a big hit with other guys making so much.

 

Bell’s an idiot. It is now being reported he turned down 15 million a year. The Steelers aren’t going to fuck him out of the first three seasons of pay. Unless he gets suspended. If he’s injured then they would still take care of him. Nobody is going to guarantee a contract completely for someone who has red flags for suspension.