Can Le’Veon Bell’s Week 7 return get the Steelers back on track?

Bell will reportedly end his holdout during the Steelers’ Week 7 bye and play in Week 8 against the Browns.

Le’Veon Bell’s return is officially on the horizon. The running back plans to report to the Pittsburgh Steelers during their Week 7 bye, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.

Bell has been in a months-long standoff with the reigning AFC North champions, but they’ve looked anything but a playoff contender during his absence. He sat out through training camp and the entirety of the preseason in protest of his current contract, and in four games without him, the Steelers have a 1-2-1 record.

It’s more than just Bell. The Steelers defense is struggling and the passing game hasn’t been its usual explosive self. But after Bell’s replacement James Conner has a strong Week 1 showing, he has just 97 rushing yards in the last three weeks combined.

It’s another reason that trade rumors involving Bell made little sense, although ESPN’s Adam Schefter said Bell’s impending return won’t stop the team from continuing to shop the running back.

The likely scenario is that Bell returns to play the last 10 regular season games of 2018 in Pittsburgh. With the Steelers on a Week 7 bye, Bell will have some extra time to get reintegrated into the offense and ready for a Week 8 game against the Cleveland Browns.

Until then, he’ll miss a Week 5 game against the Atlanta Falcons and an important Week 6 game against the divisional rival Cincinnati Bengals.

Will the return of Bell be a smooth reunion?

Bell’s holdout drew the ire of his teammates and coaches when Week 1 practices got underway and the running back still hadn’t shown up. The team’s offensive linemen were especially perturbed by the situation, upset that Bell hadn’t communicated with them:

General manager Kevin Colbert was less pointed, but he still released a statement to say that he was “disappointed” Bell hadn’t shown up.

Not everyone was with Bell, though. Antonio Brown showed his support for his teammate on Twitter:

“No one wins when the family feuds,” Brown said Friday, via ESPN. “At the end of the day, we’re family.”

Bell has also received support from other players in the league who recognize that the running back fighting for a better contract is a good situation in the long run for players hoping to get a larger slice of the pie. When Earl Thomas’ public feud with the Seahawks ended with a broken leg in Week 4, Bell posted on Instagram that he’ll “continue to be the ‘bad guy’ for ALL of us.”

Both Bell and Thomas are redefining the way players leverage their skills for money and it could be a monumental moment if the running back gets what he’s aiming for when the 2019 offseason comes.

With the Steelers in need of help, Bell probably won’t have much drama after his return. He’ll be a nice addition for the team so long as he’s ready to play immediately.

“When he gets here, the level of overall conditioning and readiness, those are equations that we’ll weigh,” Tomlin said of Bell at the beginning of September.

Bell is too talented to stay on the bench for long, if at all. He helps the team win, and winning forgives all.

How did Bell and the Steelers get to this point?

Bell was set to hit free agency in 2017 after playing out all four years of his rookie contract, but the Steelers have shown little interest in committing long-term salary to their top tailback. At least not with the numbers that Bell is looking to get.

Pittsburgh retained Bell via the franchise tag last spring, signing him to a one-year, $12.12 million deal that kept him in black and gold through the season — a deal that came months after the club locked fellow offensive standout Antonio Brown into a four-year, $68 million deal.

Bell wasn’t happy with his new short-term deal. He sat out the majority of training camp and the preseason, refusing to sign his franchise tender until Sept. 1. That gave him nine days to prepare for the team’s season opener in Cleveland — a game where he was held to just 32 yards on 10 carries.

While he’d eventually find his footing in an All-Pro campaign, his performance wasn’t enough to convince the Steelers to pony up for Bell’s asking price. Pittsburgh once again tagged him; this time for $14.54 million. And once again, Bell held out — this time while threatening to sit out as long as Week 9 in order to avoid injury in advance of finally hitting the free agent market in 2019.

For every game Bell sits out — which is set to finish at a total of six games — it costs him a game check worth $853,000 each.

But he’s set to be back and play under the tag for the second straight year. Then he’ll likely hit free agency in the spring.

Where do the Steelers go from here?

Pittsburgh has been insulating itself for Bell’s departure over the past 18 months, selecting Conner in the third round of last year’s draft.

Tomlin has praised Conner’s progress, saying he had gone “from a rookie that missed time due to soft-tissue injuries and lack of general readiness to a guy that’s done the things that we’ve outlined.”

Bell got exactly 10 times the carries Conner did last fall (320 to 32), but the then-rookie performed well in limited action, averaging 4.5 yards per carry.

His Week 1 performance showed promise that Conner can be the team’s workhorse of the future, but he still has growing to do. Bell will be a welcomed addition and could be enough to get the Steelers back on track.