Le’Veon Bell on ‘Perfectionist’ Sam Darnold

New York Jets running back Le’Veon Bell has said that his young QB Sam Darnold reminds him of himself. 

Currently, Le’Veon Bell has not played a game in almost 600 days. It means he has had a lot of time to train. After being ruled out of preseason games by Adam Gase earlier this week, he has even more.

One thing he has noticed in this time is the mentality of Sam Darnold, who won the Jets starting job last season.

Darnold started 13 games in 2018, with 17 touchdowns to 15 interceptions. Mixed results that the Jets hope will improve once Le’Veon Bell gets involved in the passing game.

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“Sam has all the intangibles, he has the mindset,” Bell said.

“You can see him — he’s a competitor. Every day in practice he literally wants to get better. It’s hard to … it’s hard to describe someone that’s like that because I’m like that.

“A lot of people go to practice and you’re just practicing. They call a play and you run the play. When they call a play for me, I’m trying to work myself and I’m trying to like really get better at it. And I can see that in Sam. When he makes a throw he doesn’t really like, I can see that in his face, ‘I could’ve thrown that better.’ You’ve got to love that about him because he literally wants to be perfect.

“He reminds me a lot of myself in that aspect.”

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Before his season-long holdout, Le’Veon Bell was one of the best players in the league. He knows that fans are eager to see if he’s still the same running back.

“I know everybody’s eager to watch me play, and I’m eager to play,” he said. 

“Everybody knows I’m being patient, and that’s what I’m doing. I’ll wait till Week 1 comes, and when it counts, I’ll be out there giving it everything I’ve got.”