Chiefs will pay Le’Veon Bell $690,000 in salary, up to $1 million in incentives

[KC Wolf]

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If a team had traded for running back Le'Veon Bell, it would have had to pay him $6 million in salary for the rest of this season. After the Jets cut Bell, the Chiefs signed him for a lot less than that.

Bell will make $690,000 in salary for the remaining 12 weeks of this season, and can earn up to $1 million in playing time and playoff incentives, according to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.

The Jets are still on the hook for the remaining $6 million in salary Bell is owed because that money was guaranteed as termination pay under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

That Bell ended up taking so much less than he was owed by the Jets shows that he just can’t command that kind of money anymore, and the Jets’ attempt to trade him wasn’t going to work. Bell was once a first-team All-Pro running back, but he didn’t play at all in 2018 and hasn’t played well in 2019 or 2020.

Now Bell will get an opportunity to show he still has something left in the remainder of this season with the Chiefs, and then he’ll hit free agency in 2021 — when he won’t get anything close to the money the Jets paid him.