The ongoing contract stalemate between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Le’Veon Bell is still not going anywhere as the team prepares for the upcoming draft.
Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert told reporters on Monday that he had “No update to report” on the status of negotiations. Much like he did last year at the same time, he pointed to the draft and said the team isn’t as focused on the contract situation.
“Really we’re in this draft preparation in full detail and that’s got our full attention,” Colbert said, per Lauren Kirschman of Penn Live. “And we usually don’t address these types of situations until after the draft when we re-evaluate our salary cap situation and anything we want to do moving forward.”
That sounds very logical and all, but again, this is a broken record at this point. Colbert said the exact same thing last year and no deal got done. Given the fact that Bell reportedly wants to make as much money as receiver Antonio Brown, this isn’t all that surprising, either.
Is Bell one of the NFL’s elite playmakers? Sure he is. He racked up 1,946 yards and 11 touchdowns from scrimmage last year in just 15 games and is undeniably one of the best running backs to play the game in years.
That said, running backs are a cheap commodity in the NFL, and teams routinely find very productive backs late in the draft. So, it stands to reason that Pittsburgh will not be willing to give Bell as much as he’s looking for, which could lead to a very important decision for the running back later this summer.