Opinion: Le'Veon Bell played 10-15 lbs heavier than ideal

[RobR]

5 hours ago, Sperm Edwards said:

Whatever the rationale, it certainly hasn't worked out. 

When you go back over time and look at player acquisitions that were similar to this, they never work out in the end. And I mean never. I don't care what type of miles some suggested were on his tires, they are miles nonetheless. 

If you want to bring in a Bell type in a Ladainian Tomlinson type role I'm sure he would work out great and he still could if we can cut his carries and finally draft a RB that is worthwhile. My biggest problem with not only the Jets but some posters were that they were duped into thinking a RB, any RB, could duplicate(or even come close) to his best seasons when he was in his early to mid 20's after all of those carries and taking a year off.  It just doesn't happen, especially with a guy with that many touches, whether they be receiving or rushing.

The biggest problem is a clueless GM like Mac is paying him like he thought he could duplicate those seasons. For now we're stuck with him next year so we might as well maximize his talents by drafting someone like Edwards-Helaire (or name your favorite) so Bell can get reduced touches and be a cog in the wheel, not unlike LT when we were only a game away from the Superbowl twice.

Bell ever becoming a bellcow again is fools gold. RB's his age don't ever get better, they only get worse.  

[Big_Slick]

On 1/9/2020 at 7:32 PM, slimjasi said:

It's not just the fans, it's the coaches. 

Coaches let star/veteran players do whatever they want in preseason. 

Coaches can't make any player attend voluntary OTA's or off season weight training programs. Players on the bubble are less likely to skip because they'll be cut as an example but guys with big $$$ contracts can do what they want.

[Sperm Edwards]

18 hours ago, RobR said:

When you go back over time and look at player acquisitions that were similar to this, they never work out in the end. And I mean never. I don't care what type of miles some suggested were on his tires, they are miles nonetheless. 

If you want to bring in a Bell type in a Ladainian Tomlinson type role I'm sure he would work out great and he still could if we can cut his carries and finally draft a RB that is worthwhile. My biggest problem with not only the Jets but some posters were that they were duped into thinking a RB, any RB, could duplicate(or even come close) to his best seasons when he was in his early to mid 20's after all of those carries and taking a year off.  It just doesn't happen, especially with a guy with that many touches, whether they be receiving or rushing.

The biggest problem is a clueless GM like Mac is paying him like he thought he could duplicate those seasons. For now we're stuck with him next year so we might as well maximize his talents by drafting someone like Edwards-Helaire (or name your favorite) so Bell can get reduced touches and be a cog in the wheel, not unlike LT when we were only a game away from the Superbowl twice.

Bell ever becoming a bellcow again is fools gold. RB's his age don't ever get better, they only get worse.  

I don’t know if I’d go that far. People claim it worked out with Martin. I think he was massively overpaid, and the team has the lack of rings to prove it, but to each his own. Regardless, it’s not like he dropped off a cliff as soon as he got his second (or even his third) contract.

Also it depends on what’s worth it. By that, I mean a player can be worth it for 1 year even though he’s locked in for 2-3, and that 2-3 year guarantee would still be worth it if it leads to a championship. Hell I’d take that in a heartbeat, since suffering through the waste years after that is a Jets fan’s baseline anyway.

If we had any veteran QB, or if Darnold was purely lights-out as a rookie, I’d have been far less sympathetic to paying a RB so much. I wasn’t exactly for it - I certainly wasn’t pushing it - but I didn’t hate it as much as I typically hated these since forever, because I saw it as overpayment with a singular goal of furthering Darnold’s development, more than purely in pursuit of a ring specifically in 2019 (which I felt was unrealistic anyway). Also his age is and was overblown, He was 27 in year 1 here, after sitting out healthy for all of his age 26 season and preseason with no further pounding. The body heals. I don’t agree that the new wall that RBs hit - typically claimed as being age 30 - is now essentially the first year following one’s age 25 season.

No, neither Bell nor any veteran should be expected to be faster/quicker at 27 than at age 23-24, but I don’t agree he should expectedly become so much slower at just age 27 either. Certainly not to this degree. This isn’t the early 80s where good backs often lasted 1-3 years and then their careers were over because of annual every-down overuse, plus medical technology couldn’t maintain them and patch them up nearly as well as they can today, where a year later (now often even less) it’s miraculously like an ACL/MCL injury never happend, where in the past it meant a young RB’s career was done for good. 

A healthy back (like Bell) falling off a cliff this sharply after age 25 is decidedly not the typical pattern. In fact it is quite common for the game’s elite RBs - which Bell was - to have some of their best seasons on the “wrong side of 25” in their age 26-28 range and/or after 1200+ career carries. Dickerson, Alexander, Sanders, Emmitt, Priest Holmes, etc.; and more recently Peterson, Lynch, McCoy, Ingram, and more. DeMarco Murray may also have lasted a little longer if he wasn’t burned out by Dallas with a freaking 500+ touch season at age 26. Even he bounced back temporarily at age 28, after a predictable bad season following so much action. That’s more what I’d have half-expected from Bell after 2017, but he held out in 2018 when you’d generally expect a down/injury season following one with so many carries and touches. 

The pattern you speak of is more that it’s a rarity for backs to have a really good + healthy season immediately after one with 400+ carries, but again, many bounce back in the 2nd season after that, and none of them were afforded a whole year off to totally recharge - without being injured - in the way Bell did due to his holdout. Guys like Murray, and also Larry Johnson, Edgerrin James, Ricky Williams, Jamal Anderson, Steven Jackson, Barry Foster, Herschel Walker, Jamal Lewis — the common pattern is a sharp decline, if not sustaining an outright serious injury, in the immediate year after; that’s no matter how unstoppable these backs looked like in that 400-carry/450-touch season. There are only the rarest exceptions on such repeat seasons, like Terrell Davis after his 500+ touch 1997 season, but we all know what happened right after 1998. Would he have still looked like crap for 3 weeks and then sustain that knee injury in 2000 if he took a year off in 1999 following his another mega-carry/touch ‘98? We’ll never know, but his replacements sure were productive behind Denver’s dirty chop-blocking line that also coated slippery lube onto their sleeveless arms. 

Point being not that we should have necessarily expected his best season, but we shouldn’t have expected this level dropoff. It’s a combination of him looking far slower than a 27 year-old should suddenly look - some are now saying he may have been overweight - plus the league-worst (and injury-plagued) OL was even worse than the mere bottom-tier that so many us thought it would be. To say it’s predictable that 27 year-old Bell would have a much worse season than, say, 29 year-old Carlos Hyde - and say it’s somehow due to age - is some hindsight stuff. 

You’ll get no argument from me, that Maccagnan repeatedly saw a player’s most recent season and automatically assumed that’d be the baseline for the next season. Whether it was a scrub backup filling in for a bit like Wesley Johnson in 2016; a career marginal starter who in the past had a pattern of losing his starting job as quickly as he got it like Fitz (ignoring all the would-be picks he threw that were luckily dropped, as though “luck” is a serious plan); or inking an actually older starting RB like Forte. Seriously, who signs a 31 year-old free agent RB to must-start money, after visibly, progressively declining age-29 and age-30 seasons, drafts & brings in no serious young competition for the position, and expects anything other than exactly what happened to the Jets with Forte being used as an every-down back? I would note for you, though, that Forte’s career wasn’t over following his age 25 season. His career-best year was at age 28, without the benefit/healing Bell’s year off at age 26. 

Sorry this was so long. I was up early and the house was still asleep. If you read it all you I owe you a cookie.  

[The Crusher]

"Leave LeVeon alone!"

[rangerous]

16 hours ago, Sperm Edwards said:

I just think they were different types of backs.

Martin was more of a 1-cut runner who hit whichever thing opened up first, and didn't typically whiff on an opportunity to hit a hole, even if it was smaller. Bell is more of a wait & see what opens up, even though he misses some opportunities in doing so.

Bell has (or had) a bit more power as I have few memories of Martin breaking a bunch of tackles with "wow" runs, especially in proportion to how many carries he had.

Neither were particular speed demons (though Bell looked like a sloth in 2019 compared to his old self).

Neither were make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t types if the OL wasn't doing its job, so that's simlar.

Bell is/was a more dangerous receiver (both had plenty good hands).

Martin was far more durable; 

• Bell missed many games, including most of the team's playoff games while he was with Pittsburgh: played fully in just 2 postseason games from the 2016 season and 1 from the 2017 season; he missed most of the last game in 2016, and completely missed the playoffs entirely in 2015 (2 games) and 2014 (1 game). Maybe if he was more durable Pittsburgh would have another SB appearance and/or win (or more), or more playoff wins anyway; you don't just delete your best or 2nd-best playmaker on offense and presume it has no direct and/or domino effect, otherwise for all his stats what is he really worth? 
• Martin, on the other hand, pretty much never missed a game (though he should have voluntarily sat at times, since that idiot Edwards was never going to sit him no matter how hurt he was, nor would Parcells no matter how ineffective he was. Mega points for toughness and pain threshold and carer durability, but no points during those down times for team-first-ness, not unlike career Captain Selfish Cal Ripken through every/any slump and injury he had for years). Still, he played at an effective level for an impossibly-long time for the position, though, in a way few others did. Bell won't make it to nearly 3500 carries.

Both are and were cap-destroyers, which is to say fans love the signings and extensions, but there's poor value in return. Martin's deals were worse for the team, though, from the 1st + 3rd round draft picks that went to a division rival, after already agreeing to surrender a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and a 4th for Parcells, to a contract that'd be the equivalent of I guess $23MM on today's $200MM cap (he got $6MM/year from Parcells when the cap was just $52MM; luckily Belichick pounded the table for Testaverde so we at least got really close once, or maybe we'd have just gone with Tuna's choice Foley for all of 1998. But I digest ). 

1. If I needed a player for one game in his prime, knowing he's healthy at kickoff, it'd be younger Bell 10x out of 10.
2. If I needed one for a 3-year run it's hard to say because, while Bell was both the more dangerous runner and receiver, odds are at least 50/50 he'd be watching the playoffs from the sideline after a season of punishment; he'll also miss a decent chunk of one regular season and most of another, but when he is in there before getting hurt he'll be the more dangerous player.
3. For a longer career, if that's what's important to you - especially if $ is not a factor - there's no question it's Martin. However I would question the veteran contract value of either of these two in the salary cap era, since neither was one to overcome a bad OL, and multiple others were more dangerous (handoff-wise) in every year of each one's career even if the superiority of those other backs was shorter-lived. Truth is neither of them has reached a superbowl (let alone won one), for all the accolades each made it to exactly one AFCCG, and each was quite forgettable in his championship game opportunity, where a great game from either definitely could/would have caused the game to go the other way.

didn't martin make the superbowl as part of the 96 patsies?  i think part of the problem is it's pretty easy to take a good back out of the game by the defense.  so these good regular season backs don't put up really good numbers in the post season.

[Sperm Edwards]

2 hours ago, rangerous said:

didn't martin make the superbowl as part of the 96 patsies?  i think part of the problem is it's pretty easy to take a good back out of the game by the defense.  so these good regular season backs don't put up really good numbers in the post season.

Yes he did, but with such unnecessarily long posts I sometimes go in & out of a thought process (conflating his whole career with his Jets career playing at his overpriced mega-dollars). The Pats certainly wouldn't have reached that SB if Martin was hitting the cap for $6MM that year instead of 3rd round rookie contract money, because it'd have meant 2-3 fewer veteran starters elsewhere.

Also I'd take issue with the notion that his 3.6ypc was what made that '96 team a winner (particularly since he didn't even gain over 3 ypc in half his games, was embarrassingly under 3.5ypc in 11 of 16  games, and didn't have a good game against a good rush defense in even 1 of those 16 starts). His 2nd-best game of the year was probably the modest 21-94-1 performance, in a December game against the long-since-eliminated, utter trash, 1-win Kotite Jets who were easily gashed for 200 rushing yards the prior week and 130 yards the week after. I had him on my FF team that year . 

By the numbers he did have one of the best games of his career in his first ever playoff game vs Pittsburgh; but it was also the only good game he had against a decent run defense the whole year, and even he (graciously) admitted after the game it was due to his OL. Lost in that anyway is how irrelevant the individual performance ended up being, since the win was due to the Pats' defense massacring the Tomczak/Bettis offense to the tune of 3 points.