Yep, it looks like Le’Veon Bell will actually sit out the entire 2018 NFL season

The good news for the Pittsburgh Steelers during their bye week was that each of the other three AFC North teams lost, springboarding the Steelers from third to first in the division standings. That lasted through Week 10 after wins over the Browns, Ravens, and Panthers

The bad news was Le’Veon Bell didn’t show up. And, if reports are to believed, he won’t — at least not in 2018.

This is big news, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Bell has been flirting with the idea of preserving his health and proving his point by extending his holdout to rarely-seen lengths.

Earlier in October, there was a report that the star running back intended to end his holdout during Pittsburgh’s Week 7 bye. That didn’t happen. Then Bell’s own Tweets made it sound like he was leaving Miami and returning to the only team he’s known as a pro, but that hasn’t happened either. Now, it appears he’s ready to forfeit all $14.54 million guaranteed to him in this year’s franchise tag in order to prep for a potential big money, long term contract deal next offeseason.

Once the Steelers locked in their 53-man roster in September, the team didn’t have to immediately release someone to make room for Bell when he returned. Instead, Pittsburgh can bring him back with a roster-exempt status, which allows him to practice with the Steelers for up to two weeks as a 54th man on the roster until they decide to activate him.

But his pay during that period has to be negotiated. Jay Glazer says the team began discussing that with Bell during the bye week:

It apparently didn’t go well. According to a report from DKPittsburghSports.com, Bell changed his mind about reporting during the bye week because the Steelers weren’t willing to pay his full salary during his two-week exemption. The report says “Bell chose to stay away at least another week and could do so for the remainder of the season.”

If that’s true, an already contentious relationship between the player and team may be even worse now.

It’d make sense that Bell would want to give the Steelers the ultimate middle finger by never helping them win again, but his goal is to get a huge contract. And if Bell doesn’t show up at all this season, he’s jeopardizing his chance to become a free agent in 2019 — and risking his best chance at that big money.

He can wait until Nov. 13, five days before the Steelers’ Week 11 game against the Jaguars, to report. If he shows up before that deadline, he can play out the remainder of his contract and likely become a free agent in March. If he doesn’t, the franchise tag the Steelers used to keep him can be applied again — but not at the same price. A new hitch in the league’s collective bargaining agreement would put Bell in line for a major raise. His tagged salary would equal the average of the league’s top five highest-paid players in 2019.

It’s clear that Bell wants to make a point, and sitting out the entire season would be making a hell of a statement.

But if the Steelers use the franchise tag again after Bell sits out year, he’ll be in the same exact position next year that he is now. Would Pittsburgh bother to tag him again knowing he already sat out an entire season? Maybe at $14.54m. Almost certainly not at a cost likely to hover around $25-26m.

It currently isn’t costing the Steelers anything to keep Bell, an elite offensive talent, on the roster. Caving to a player wouldn’t be the usual modus operandi of an NFL team — especially an old-school organization like the Steelers that has played hardball with Bell from the start.

That 2019 raise gives Bell a bit more leverage and some additional incentive to sit out the season. And if recent reports from Maurice Jones-Drew, who shares Bell’s agent, are correct, this could all be new information for the All-Pro back.

Until recently, however, Bakari apparently thought the Steelers could re-use the second-year tag number of $14.544 million in 2019 if Bell held out the entire 2018 season. That is what former running back Maurice Jones-Drew, who also is represented by Bakari, told host Dave Dameshek on the league-run NFL Podcasts this week.

Jones-Drew confirmed what was first reported Tuesday by The Athletic – that Bakari didn’t have a firm grasp of the collective bargaining agreement procedures.

“Once that came out, there is now digging and reading and trying to understand the language – there’s a lot of language in the CBA, particularly for this particular instance,” Jones-Drew said. “It’s going back now, to sit down and figure out … because if it’s true, Le’Veon doesn’t have to play and he still gets the transition tag, which makes him a free agent, and he gets to go out and negotiate with anyone he wants and the Steelers have the right to match it.”

So maybe that’s why Bell trudged up to Pittsburgh but hasn’t reported to practice yet. He knows he won’t get franchise tagged again in ‘19 even if he misses the whole season. And even though that will come at a cost to his wallet (he’s forfeiting a little more than $855,000 for each game he misses) and his reputation, he’ll stay healthy in advance of a major long-term contract next offseason.

The Steelers could still use the transition tag to make Bell a kinda-sorta restricted free agent, but all that would do is give the club the right of first refusal on an outside contract offer. Since the rest of the NFL has a pretty good idea where Pittsburgh’s sticking point is, it seems unlikely any team with interest in Bell is going to offer him a contract the Steelers would be likely to match. That means Pittsburgh may be forced to watch its dynamic tailback leave town without any compensation — and after sitting out an entire season.