Free agent Bell is Bills’ green giant
Published: May 03, 2009, 7:10 am
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Unless you’re a card-carrying member of the Furman Paladins booster club or meet the criteria of a college football psycho, you’ve probably never heard of Joel Bell. Then again, that sentence alone raises three questions: Where’s Furman, what’s a paladin and who in the world is Joel Bell?
Furman is a liberal arts university in South Carolina. A paladin is defined as a military leader, or champion for a cause. It’s also the name of Furman’s mascot, common knowledge for anyone from the Division I-AA Southern Conference. Bell, 23, is a raw 6-foot-7, 315-pound rookie offensive tackle, a green giant if there ever was one.
He’s an undrafted free agent who was invited to rookie camp with the Buffalo Bills, a long shot wearing No. 71, much like the unheralded free agent who wore the number before him. The other guy became a two-time Pro Bowl selection and now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. And when he first arrived, people asked this question:
“Who in the world is Jason Peters?”
And now they know. “It’s definitely a great opportunity,” Bell said. “I would definitely say it’s my dream now, but I slowly realized it was my dream. The last couple of years, I’ve been working hard trying to get here, and now I’m working hard to stay. You just take it in stride, be cool about everything and go with the flow.”
It shouldn’t be a tall order.
Bell’s story has a few more twists and turns and, truthfully, not as much promise as the one Peters can boast. For starters, if Bell is asked to leave Bills Nation in the coming months, it wouldn’t be the first time he was given the boot. His family was banished from Egypt when he was a child.
His parents were Baptist missionaries who spent two years living outside Cairo before being escorted out of the country for preaching Christianity.
He spent another seven years living in Croatia while his parents spread the word.
Yeah, he played football, but over there it was called soccer. As you might guess, Croatia didn’t have Pop Warner leagues. The first time he saw an NFL game was when he was a young teen who watched the Dallas Cowboys on a videotape sent to his parents’ friends in Croatia. He played a little basketball but, really, he just played like the other kids.
His first real exposure to American football was during his sophomore year at Spartanburg, S. C., high school, when he was 16. His coaches showed him where to line up as a tight end and watched him butcher such intricate pass routes as—dust off your old playbooks—the down-and-out.
“I was a big string bean,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know what was going on. They just threw the ball at me.”
The other kids howled, of course. Who’s laughing now?
What separated Bell, other than an utter lack of experience, was size and heart. Coaches can show their players every blocking assignment and guide them into the weight room, but they cannot teach a player to grow into a 6- foot-7, 250-pounder with long arms and a longer work ethic.
Bell grew an inch and gained 75 pounds between his sophomore and senior years of high school. He switched to tackle, started one game for the varsity as a junior and was all-league as a senior. “False-started a bunch,” he said. Coaches and teammates began telling him he had a bright future, and he wound up at Furman.
“I was tall and athletic and stuff, but I never wrapped my whole mind around the game,” Bell said. “I didn’t even know I was going to play college ball. I didn’t have any plans for that. I was just having fun playing here in the States. I was doing whatever, working out and gaining weight.”
He gained another 65 pounds in college, was a three-time All-Southern Conference selection and was rated between 16th and 23rd among offensive tackles, depending on which draft gurus graded him. He signed with the Bills, in part, because they lost Peters and didn’t select a tackle.
Does he have a realistic shot at making the Bills roster? Well, he has an opportunity, and that alone makes it realistic. He’s big, strong and competitive. At this point, that’s about all anyone knows, including the Bills’ coaching staff.
If we learned anything from Peters, it’s that nobody is certain about an unpolished player until he gets the coaching he needs at the NFL level. Peters started on special teams, played tight end, moved to right tackle and two years later was among the better left tackles in the league. Had any scouting staff known he would evolve into a player of that caliber, he would have been selected in the first round.
“Once they get here,” Bills coach Dick Jauron said, “we tell them, ‘We’re not concerned with how you got here, and you shouldn’t be concerned either. The fact that you’re here gives you a chance. Use the opportunity and use it wisely.’ ”
The NFL is littered with undrafted free agents who did. Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner was stocking shelves in a grocery store after college and wound up winning a Super Bowl. James Harrison and Willie Parker helped the Steelers to a title last year over Warner and the Cards.
Peters is one of many former Bills’ players ignored in the draft. Pat Williams, Jabari Greer, Jim Leonhard, Fred Jackson and Brian Moorman are others who come to mind in recent years. Meanwhile, the Bills’ first-round picks since 2000 included Erik Flowers, Mike Williams, J. P. Losman and John McCargo.
Joel Bell, NFL player?
We’ll see, but it does have a nice ring.
bgleason@buffnews.com
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