He’s a player who can hurt opponents in more ways than one . . .
We all know what a rare running talent Le’Veon Bell is, but you can’t minimize what a great receiver he is.
He runs routes and has the hands of an elite wide receiver. Bell had 85 catches in 2017 playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Adam Gase, who has a creative offensive mind, plans on lining Bell up all over to confuse defenses.
“You’re not one-dimensional (with Bell),” Gase said recently. “When you have a running back that the defense isn’t sure if he’s going to be in the gun, offset, strong, weak. Is he going to be under center? Is he going to be split out wide? Is he going to be the single receiver? Is he going to be the empty? Is he going to be in the slot? There’s five different spots.”
Bell will create a lot of defensive challenges for Jets opponents.
“If you’ve got a guy that can do all of those different types of things and he’s good at it and he’s able to catch the ball and run the routes like that, it makes it very difficult for the defense to defend,” Gase said. “You start seeing coverages where they simplify it because you’re moving so many pieces around. And when you have that kind of flexibility it puts a lot of pressure on the defense, it’s hard to cover everything. So they have to simplify the defense and that’s what helps the other guys as well. Because they’re focused on [Bell] so much.”
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