Sometimes its is fun to be passionate about something that doesn't really matter in the least. Signing him won't influence me one iota as far as being a Colt fan. It's been 50 years and counting. It's just that Bell would take us to the next level without costing anything except money (unless Pitts transitions him, then no to spending money and draft choices to get him). And it is not my money. So hell yes spend it on the best you can find.

The transition tag doesn't give the Steelers picks, just right of first refusal, which can be circumvented without appearing to be poison pill (though it absolutely would be) by frontloading the deal. Make the first year cap hit literally unaffordable for the Steelers, and he's yours for nothing but money.

/thread

Ballard has also said that he has to re-evaluate his free agent spending this next offseason because he didn't expect the rebuild to be progressing this quickly. That tells me that he purposely didn't spend much previously because he thought it would be wasted if he spent too much too early in the rebuild. So now he realizes that this team is closer, and he will be willing to spend more in free agency to go along with that to fill in the voids and get talent.

In other words, I wouldn't go much on Ballard's history so far.

He was part of the front office that signed Julius Peppers to a mega deal.

Reasons NOT to sign Le'Veon Bell, in my personal order of significance:

1. Not convinced that he's as effective as his reputation suggests - his last season's production has been exceeded by the replacement RBs that Pittsburgh has used (Conner, Samuels).

2. Might be on the downside of his career - RBs often peak at age 25 or younger.

3. Price - is the upgrade over Mack worth the increased price that Bell would command? I know we have lots of cap space, but I still believe its important to practice financial responsibility. Perhaps that money is better directed at our own existing players.

4. Two time substance abuse violator

5. Holdout - I continue to be concerned about his decision to holdout this season, and his late season snipes at the Steelers.

Incidentally, here's a four part series of articles from Behind the Steel Curtain which attempt to address many of these issues (among several others), and you can judge for yourself whether the arguments are convincing:

Part 1
https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...umors-steelers

Part 2
https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...nchise-tag-nfl

Part 3
https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...-franchise-tag

Part 4
https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...nfl-free-agent

I will say its kind of funny to read the author's comment (written in April) regarding Bell's then-recent threat to sit out the season and not sign the franchise tag - "Come on folks, who actually believed this frustrated bluster? Bell’s not missing out on $900,000 per game, let alone $14.5 million for the entire season."

Which really they should do anyway because there are no huge contracts for the next couple years. By the time guys from this recruiting class are due the contract should be minimal. The money is just sitting there otherwise.

Aren't you supposed to be busy elsewhere tonight?

And I agree with the above. Bless you.

I think you are mistaken him for Santa Claus. Two different people :cool:

Would rather have DJ Swearinger? He's suddenly become available because the Redskins are dumb

I would definitely like him on the team. Haven’t watched any redskins this year but he was rated highly for most of the year.

What is the full story? Because he made comments to the media about the shitty play calling there? I haven't had chance to really read it.

The only convincing argument there is 4, and that could be mitigated with a clause in the contract. The Steelers would be better with Bell and they know it, otherwise they wouldn't be considering transition tagging him. So would the Colts. Remember, the upgrade by adding Bell isn't just Bell vs. Mack as #1, it's Mack vs. Hines/Wilkins as #2, plus all the creative things this offense could do putting Bell and Hines, Bell and Mack, or all 3 on the field at the same time. Plus if you want an upgrade at receiver, Bell is your best bet on the 2019 free agent market.

From what I heard on the radio today, yep, that's basically it. He said that Gruden called him into his office and told him that he was cut. When he asked why, Gruden did not respond. That's all that I heard about it, but it sounds typical Redskins. I would want him because he's good, 27 years old, and Geathers & Hooker are injury prone. He'd be valuable if we are a playoff team this year, too.

That defensive coordinator was Manusky, btw. I'd venture to say that everyone on this board has bad-mouthed him, too. Come home, DJ!

I thought they were one and the same.

My bad.

He said Greg Manusky can't call a D plan worth a crap. Been there, done that.

He’s been reported to be a locker room cancer. I say no fucken way

I have to believe there is more to it than this one incident and there is probably some truth to that report.

You make a good point about the domino effect that adding Bell would have upon the entire roster of RBs, but can you explain why you disagree with items 1 and 2? Those are the ones that to me are most concerning.

The Broncos undrafted running back made the pro bowl this year. I'm sorry, but why would the Colts sign Bell when you can get someone younger and cheaper. Like Michael of the Pats. He was the 31st pick.

Mack has done a very good job for the Colts. They have 3 guys who can play, finding another back like Mack who can also catch the ball, you have options, all of which will cost less than one Bell.

1) Getting the same level of production out of two players as you previously did out of one player illustrates the one player's value to me rather than negating it. For example, if player A produces 16 sacks, then the next year players B and C produce 9 and 7 sacks each, that tells me that if I still had player A, then players A, B, and C would likely all be more effective.

2) Who cares? Even if he peaked at 25, a player's prime is longer than one year, and anyone who would be counting on Bell for more than 3-4 years is foolish.

Sorry Dam, I see now that I wasn’t clear in my original post. Conner was generating more offense than Bell on his own, then got injured. Samuels came in next and is doing the same. They weren’t doing it at the same time. So my concern is that Bell has been easy to replace, so maybe it’s the offense, not the player.

I do care about whether he’s peaked, not because I was hoping he’d get better, but because he might not be able to deliver what we’d be expecting. We’d be paying $15M+ to a player on the downside of his career, which doesn’t seem wise to me. Take a look at the career stats of some of the great RBs and you’ll see what I mean. I had a link to an article about this in another post.

If it means we don’t have to rely on Mack each week sign me up

Supposedly he was released in Houston for behavioral issues, same in Tampa, and now Washington. He was cut in Arizona apparently for cap reasons, but it’s telling that he was among their cuts despite being a young player. He has had 4 teams in 5 years, and is looking for his fifth. Is he the only pro bowler to ever be cut mid season? There is def more to this than the one incident. And that’s enough for me to say hell no.

After reading up on Swearinger I don’t think there’s any way Ballard would even consider it. Wrong mindset for this team, and not THAT good.

Yeah, something is up there. I like the chemistry the team has currently. Don't want to throw a poison pill in there next.

Phillips is an outlier though. He is the first to ever do it. We could spend a top 60 pick on a RB. Another guy I kind of like is Josh Jacobs of Alabama, he has been buried under the depth chart some and splits carries but he gets rave reviews by scouts who attend bama practices. He might be around that range and he would have very low mileage coming out of college.

If they signed Bell they could then use all their picks on making the defense better. I don't think there is a right way or wrong way. I do think they need another weapon on offense and some more talent in the defensive line and secondary. Just multiple ways to go about it.

I bet Tevon Coleman is released this year also, might be an option.

Dominic Rhodes was undrafted and in 2001 ran for 1000 yards in basically 10 games or so for the Colts.

Not so rare, even for this team

ALso on a side note........Rhodes only rushed for about 3200 yards in his NFL career. Thought it would be more.

And he was the United Football League offensive player of the year in 2011 for the Virginia Destroyers. They won the title that year, out of 4 teams.

Running the ball is not the only job of a RB, especially in this offense. Multidimensional RBs are a lot more difficult to find than RBs who can run the ball well.

True, I'm not saying you can't find them, but that was almost 20 years ago. That is kind of rare to me. Also, Rhodes had a lot of complementary talent around him, no one was scheming to shut him down. Marvin was the juggernaut of the offense that year. We also had Wayne (bad rookie year though), Wilkins, Pathon (Mr. I have to jump when I catch the ball because running and catching at the same time is too hard), Dilger, Pollard. That was a passing offense and that is what people were trying to shut down.

This team has TY and Ebron as matchup problem players. Doyle is a good all around TE but he doesn't scare anyone. We need another weapon on offense whether that is a dual threat RB like Bell, or a second WR. Bell makes sense because we have the money and he should be a FA. There might be other RB options through FA as well. The WR FA class looks mediocre coming up and drafting a WR will take some time to develop. We could draft a RB and there are some candidates, but the class is not as good as the last couple years. Also we likely would have to use a top 90 pick on the RB if we wanted to try to find a good dual threat. That is just the basic odds of success when drafting.

We should also think about finding TY's replacement as a number 1, he will be 30 next year.

The point is, those are just two random examples, just off the top of our heads, of undrafted rookies that made at great in the NFL as RBs. That is not all of them.

That doesn't include any number of lower round picks that also performed great at RB.

So no, you don't need a top 90 pick at RB to find a "dual threat", necessarily. You can find RBs throughout the draft.

And needs at WR are not just as a future #1 to replace TY, but to upgrade the entire unit. Its weak overall beyond him. Would much rather use draft picks and/or money on that rather than on signing bell.

It is absolutely correct that you can find great rb's in almost any round and including in free agency. It's just that I think the chance is much greater to find an all-pro if you sign a player that already is one. For every back who became a good starting running back as a free agent there are literally hundreds, if not thousands who did not. I would like an upgrade next year and think the chances are best by signing Bell (if his demands are reasonable). This team is on such a good trajectory that it isn't a make or break decision either way, just one way we could go.

Using examples and outliers doesn't prove a point though. You have to look at the data overall from the draft and UDFA's to form an opinion. Of course, you don't need a 1st round pick to find a dual threat RB. The best odds of finding an elite dual-threat back is in the first round though. You can find depth and running back by committee guys later in the draft. For every Dominic Rhodes there is a ton of guys that don't do anything.

https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2015/...draft-by-round

This guy does a good breakdown of draft odds by position and success rate. RB's have a very high bust rate. He states:

This data only goes to 2015. If you look at the 2016 draft, you have only Ezekiel Elliot drafted high in the first. We can all agree that he is an elite back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_NFL_Draft

But look at the later rounds, there are a lot of RB's drafted. Only Jordan Howard and Derrick Henry stick out to me in that list. I roughly count 22 RB's drafted in rounds 2-7 and also including UDFA's. That's a high bust rate. So you can do the top couple rounds with the best odds, or you can try a volume approach to try and find one if you want to go the draft route.

Finally, I didn't say we need to only replace TY as a number one and that is the only concern. I said we need to start thinking about it because he is getting up there. That should coincide though with trying to find a number two. Teams usually draft a WR hoping they will become a number 1 eventually. Drafting WR's is difficult as well because they also have a high bust rate.

I also said we need another offensive weapon, whether that is an elite RB, WR, whatever to attack defenses. Bell makes logical sense because of the reasons I laid out. If Bell happened to be a WR I would say the same thing. Also, there seems to be a lot more money left over to address other positions. We could sign Bell, the top FA pass rusher, and still have lots of money left over. I would rather use FA, because using draft picks on RB's is a bit harder to hit with. I would rather use the draft for young defensive players. But signing Bell doesn't mean we can't sign other players as well.

Right now, yes please with Bell

"Former Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Reggie Wayne is adding fuel to the excitement of Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le'veon Bell joining the Colts. ... The newest member of the Colts Ring of Honor is apparently a big Bell fan."

I think the offense will be just fine with Mack/Hines/Wilkins. Mack is not a great back but he’s fine, and the OL is great, so he will put up numbers. I think we are seeing the same principle as with the old Shanahan Broncos OLs, they manufactured 1000 yard rushers like it was easy.

Then again, when they got Terrell Davis, they won 2 SBs. Mack sometimes gets 5 yards where a better back would probably get 15+. He can definitely be improved upon. He’s fine, but I would not call him the “answer” at RB.

When I have time I will look this up, but in regard to having a top notch running back, how many of those teams who used a first round pick on a RB or signed a big name FA RB have won a SB in the last 10 years?


Off the top of my head, I would say only Seattle with Lynch.

That is what matters most. The teams that consistently win, year after year, who are they relying on as RBs and where are they drafting them?

The majority of teams winning SBs or conference titles are not drafting RBs at the top or putting big money in FA running backs.

Again I can quote any numbers right now, but I will when I have time.

And where was Terrrell Davis drafted? 6th round

Also consider in terms of years of value for a first round pick or a big salary FA RB, you get probably the least time out of a RB. They have the shortest time frame as a top player in most cases, compared to WR, pass rusher, OL, QB, LB, pretty much any other position.

You seem dead set against adding Bell. What would you do this off-season to add to the team?