Report: The New York Jets are the favorites to sign Le’Veon Bell

Fun fact about the 2018 NFL season:

One team from New York ranked 26th in the league in rushing yards.

The other team from New York ranked 24th.

One of these teams has this dude you may have heard of named Saquon Barkley, the other does not.

Obviously, that doesn’t count postseason, not like that would change either number anyway BA DUM TSSSSSS.

Hating on our enemies aside, while the Giants are busy not franchise-tagging one of their better players because of his coverage skills despite Landon Collins playing in the box on 60% of his snaps (OK, maybe we weren’t done hating on our enemies quite yet), the New York Jets are sitting on a svelte $102 million in cap space and according to this report, they’re trying to use it to have Le’Veon Bell play against New England twice a year instead of the annual Pats-Steelers Invitational.

And in what may be a first for the Jets in recent memory, they actually have a decent backup plan if Bell doesn’t work out.

From Pro Football Talk:

The Jets might or might not be the favorites for Le’Veon Bell‘s landing spot, but they definitely are interested and will come out of free agency with a running back.

Connor Hughes of TheAthletic.com reports that the Jets have competition for Bell’s services from the Eagles and the Buccaneers. One agent well versed in the running back market told Hughes the Jets are “undeniably the favorite.”

If the Jets fail to land Bell, they will turn to Falcons running back Tevin Coleman, according to Hughes.

First off, anybody have any guesses on what Le’Veon might actually end up signing for? If he’s allegedly turned down the Steelers’ offer that allegedly was good for 5 years and an average of $15 million a year, does that get it done now, or is that going to get you laughed out of the building?

(Hey, we never said his expectations were realistic)

Second, and maybe this doesn’t matter at all, but the 2019 J-E-T-S aren’t exactly stacked with Pro Bowlers like Pittsburgh was, and with a new head coach in Adam Gase and a sophomore QB that’s probably going to have to learn a whole new offense, they’re clearly not built to contend this year (pending a monster free agency, of course), and by 2020 Bell’s going to be 28 years old, and that’s at least one, maybe two years of your prime that’s probably going towards a rebuilding project. Maybe Le’Veon’s more like Ndamukong Suh and as long as the money’s rolling in, it’s all good, or maybe a shot at a title actually matters. Obviously so far, the former seems to matter more than the latter, but who knows.

Either way, when you’ve got that kind of money to burn and a quarterback on that half-price-wing-night contract, the Jets could certainly find worse ways to spend it.