I am a huge fan of the TV show How I Met Your Mother. If you haven’t seen it, it’s very much an exaggerated slice of life: simultaneously so absurd and so deep, very emotional and extremely funny. The central action of the show sees Ted Mosby, a hopeless romantic, always chasing after “The One”, the woman he’s supposed to spend the rest of his life with. He often gets into problems, though (duh, it’s a comedy), because he idealizes the women he meets and puts them on a pedestal. He declares his love for them before he even knows them, because he wants so badly to find this one elusive person who will be everything he’d hoped for.

In a similar way, we do this with our sports heroes. We idealize them, both in personality and in their skills on the playing field. Some fans hope so badly that it’s this year, this quarterback - maybe he’ll be “The One”. As a Packers fan, I mentally begged Ted Thompson for years to draft a running back, and we hope now that maybe NFL.com’s scouting profile even compared him to a one Mr. LeGarrette Blount, his new backfield mate in 2014. These concerns must have melted away, as Bell was able to garner an average of 22.23 touches per game as the true focal point of this Steelers offense. How did this impact his performance in the numberFire metrics?

If you have read a numberFire article before, you know about Net Expected Points (NEP). If you haven’t, this is a measure of a player’s performance as it specifically relates to his team’s probability of scoring on any given drive. You can read more about NEP in our glossary. What we’re interested in for Le’Veon Bell are his Rushing NEP and Reception NEP, which are points accumulated on only rushing attempts and receptions respectively.

Last year, Bell tallied a -13.85 Rushing NEP (the negative is somewhat misleading; this ranked 25th among the 35 running backs with at least 150 rushes), and 27.86 Reception NEP (8th among backs with at least 150 rushes). Simply put, it’s easier to accumulate positive yardage in chunks via the air, so Bell’s Reception NEP is higher than his Rushing NEP by a large margin. Still, this isn’t so misleading, as Bell’s Rushing Success Rate (the percentage of runs that contributed positively toward his NEP) ranked a still-paltry 22nd among all rushers in this study. It may be possible to chalk up some of Bell’s struggles on the ground to the Steelers’ poor offensive line play in 2013, but with a 39.75% Rush Success Rate, some of it has to be attributed to the player himself.

The upshot to this is that Bell has the capability to be a proficient three-down back, having alleviated enough concerns about his play in the passing game to be targeted 66 times. Where we must be concerned about his ability is one place that was brought up before the draft and is clearly still a problem: he doesn't get the short, crucial yardage by using his size.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Thus, the acquisition of LeGarrette Blount makes perfect sense. Blount is known as a bruising early-down back, and in fact, he had the top Rush Success Rate among all running backs with 150 or more carries in 2013. If Bell can't handle pushing the pile, he will have “Blount Force Trauma” to push him. Based on his physical skills, Bell has the profile to be a complete back and one of the last remaining bell cows in the league. He just has to learn how to be more of a traditional Steelers runner - a power back - as well as a solid receiver.

He’s on a great team to make it happen, too. The Steelers have long committed to a strong running game, and since 2000 have only had a pass-to-rush ratio above 1.25:1 four times. Also, the addition of offensive line guru Mike Munchak to the Steelers coaching staff should ensure that the Pittsburgh big uglies drastically improve in 2013. If anything about this situation getsbetter, Le’Veon Bell should keep his feature role as a true lead back, and even improve with his natural progression in his sophomore season. I’d put a ring on that.