James Harrison gives Le'Veon Bell some advice: Return to Steelers, then fake an injury

Harrison says the star running back shouldn't do anything to risk losing money

It doesn't appear that Le'Veon Bell asked for advice from James Harrison, but Bell's former teammate delivered some on Tuesday regardless. Harrison's words of wisdom were probably not what you expected.

The former Steelers linebacker appeared on FS1 to discuss Bell's holdout situation with the team, and he suggested that the 26-year-old running back should return to the team to collect his paycheck, but fake an injury to avoid games and the risk of being hurt.

"If I'm Le'Veon ... I'm coming back, what is it, Nov. 13?" Harrison said, in reference to Bell's deadline to report to the Steelers in order to be eligible for free agency in 2019. "I'm going to go in there, I'm gonna get my credit this season that I need to get and I'm going to do the best I can to get out of this season healthy."

"For me, I'd give you everything at practice. You'd see -- the cameras would see -- that I'm fine, I'm healthy. But come Saturday, 'Something ain't right. I can't play on Sunday.' Because if I go out here and I mess something up, I'm losing a lot of money."

While you can certainly credit Harrison for thinking outside the box, that plan probably wouldn't work out so well for Bell. The whole "practice every day and fake an injury on Saturday" thing would be quite obvious and probably wouldn't go over well with the Steelers, who could suspend him for refusal to play. 

It also wouldn't look great to Bell's potential suitors in free agency, who might have reservations about shelling out a major commitment to a guy who just faked an injury all year long. 

In any case, something's gotta give in this holdout eventually. After refusing to sign his one-year franchise tender of $14.5 million this offseason, Bell has missed the Steelers' first three games -- forfeiting $2.6 million in the process -- and that November deadline looms. If Bell wants to be eligible for a big, long-term payday next spring, there needs to be a resolution in the next month or so, whether it comes in Pittsburgh or elsewhere via trade.

But, yeah, faking an injury probably isn't the solution.