Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell made headlines this weekend when he went on social media and proclaimed that he wanted to make a comeback to the National Football League.

“I won’t start training until like March,” he stated in a series of Snapchat videos. “And I’m gonna be honest with myself. I gotta go out there and be like, I’m gonna put my foot in the ground. Do I Feel it? Am I hurting? Can I go out there and really play again? And bro, I’m telling y’all right now when I go out there and train in March and if I hit April and I make the decision to come back to play in the NFL again, mark my words down. I will be better than I ever was. Ever.”

The 31-year old said he feels better than he ever did, and also said that he would only come back and play for one team.

“And I will only come back for that one team. I don’t gotta say no team. Y’all know who it is.”

It’s a pretty safe bet he’s talking about Pittsburgh.

It could be the latest in an attempt to mend things between him and the Steelers. After his ugly contract holdout that saw him sit out the entire 2018 season after refusing to sign the Steelers’ franchise tag, Bell has since come out in recent years and expressed deep regret for leaving.

He has also apologized to Steelers fans for the way he departed from the team, and back in December visited the Steelers practice facility just to say hello.

A former second round pick by the Steelers in 2013, Bell spent five years in Pittsburgh, where he routinely hit the highlight reel with his patient running style that was unlike anything the NFL had ever seen.

After a stellar 2017 season that saw him run for 1,291 yards on the ground and catch for another 655 out of the backfield, the Steelers placed the franchise tag on him for the second straight season, which would have paid him $14.5 million. 

Bell rejected that in favor of a long term contract with more guaranteed money, something the Steelers were not willing to hand out. Bell skipped any and all team activities as contract negotiations were at a standstill, and despite hopes that he would show up before the start of the season, he never did.

That elevated James Conner to the sudden role of starting running back, who had huge shoes to fill. Bell continued to make headlines as the 2018 season progressed, including somewhat infamously riding a jet ski in Miami while asking for the Steelers to pay him.

Bell lost over $800,000 a week for every game he held out, and despite his continued absence, there was still some hope that he would return before the November 13th deadline to sign, and finish out the season. As the deadline came and went, Bell never showed, solidifying a year-long contract holdout.

After 2018, he signed his desired deal with the New York Jets. While he may have gotten the figures he wanted, the production did not follow. In his only full year with the Jets, Bell recorded 789 rushing yards, which was the lowest of his career in any season where he played more than 6 games.

Behind a weaker offensive line and different coaching scheme, Bell struggled mightily, and during the 2020 season, New York cut him.

He landed in Kansas City, but was not the feature back and only saw 63 total attempts in 9 games.

After that, quick stints with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Baltimore Ravens followed, but his legendary career came to a quiet ending in 2021.

Since then, he has pursued somewhat of a boxing career, but now has expressed interest in an NFL comeback. But is it at all viable?

Bell will be 32 in two weeks. Only 3 running backs at age 32 or over played in the NFL this season: Atlanta’s Cordarrelle Patterson, Las Vegas’s Brandon Bolden, and Buffalo’s Latavius Murray.

That trio combined for 47 games this season, but only 4 starts (Murray had all of them).

Amongst that group, Murray led the way in rushing yards, with 300 yards on 78 carries. Patterson had 181 on 50 carries, and Bolton had 31 on 4 carries.

The odds of Bell coming back and providing any real impact are definitely stacked against him. That especially becomes true when you look at the end of Bell’s career.

If you combine all of his stats from every team he played for after he left the Steelers, it totals 1,218 yards over the course of 34 games (366 total carries). All of that combined is still not enough to beat his total in 2017 with the Steelers, when he had 1,291 rushing yards.

The same is true for receiving yards. Bell was regarded as a true dual threat running back. From 2019 to 2021, he recorded a total of 629 receiving yards on 87 receptions. That is still lower than the 655 he had in 2017.

He truly was never the same after leaving Pittsburgh.

And speaking of things never being the same, neither are the Steelers. Head coach Mike Tomlin would be the only familiar face he would see in Pittsburgh. There’s an entire new wide receiver core, quarterback room, and offensive line (which is probably a good thing considering a lot of those guys turned on him at the time).

There’s also an entirely new running back room, one that features two excellent backs in Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren.

Le’Veon Bell has previously talked about how different things were after leaving Pittsburgh, where he was “the guy” for the Steelers. He was never really “the guy” for another team after that, and that showed in his play. Even with the Jets in 2019, before things turned south, he had 245 carries. That was the lowest in any healthy season he had since his rookie season (where he had 244).

In his final season in the NFL, he had a measly 101 rushing yards on 39 attempts, for by far the lowest yards per carry (2.6) in his career.

Bell certainly wouldn’t be “the guy” in any future NFL scenario, whether that be the Steelers or elsewhere. In Pittsburgh particularly, it would be hard to see him get any carries over Harris and Warren, who have combined to become one of the NFL’s best one-two punches.

So, does a third string running back role become the only option for Bell? That role usually requires special teams work as well, a place Bell has taken only 11 snaps at over the course of his entire NFL career.

At that point, does a comeback even make sense?

It depends on how dedicated Bell would be to the goal. If he is willing to do anything to get back to the show, then maybe, just maybe.

The Steelers have been active in the revival of several NFL careers in recent time. Just this season, Myles Jack, Eric Rowe, and Blake Martinez were all brought in by the Steelers after they had either retired or been out of the game.

In the cases of Jack and Rowe, they even played significant time and were counted on to make key plays down the stretch as the Steelers scratched and clawed for a playoff spot.

The difference there was that all of those players were on the defensive side of the ball, a side that had been decimated by injuries. Linebacker Myles Jack and safety Eric Rowe had filled in after the Steelers lost countless players at both positions. In the case of safety, the Steelers had lost Minkah Fitzpatrick, Damontae Kazee (to suspension), Trenton Thompson, and Keanu Neal.

The Steelers were lucky enough to not see that kind of catastrophic impact on offense, and in particular, their running backs both played in all 17 games (thank god.)

But with that being said, their willingness to bring in players who had not been active all that recently lends itself to the belief (not necessarily the reality) that the door isn’t all the way closed for Bell.

He has previously teased comebacks before, but it should be interesting to see how his journey goes, how long he chooses to pursue it, and if it ends up anywhere.

I have to say, seeing him comeback, even if it was just for a game, in a Steelers uniform would be crazy and entertaining. The fond memories of how dominant he was back in the day make me morbidly curious about how things would go in 2024.

I just can’t see it actually happening. Maybe Le’Veon proves me wrong.