Le’Veon Bell Reveals What Would Make Him Return to NFL

Bell is set to fight former UFC star Uriah Hall in a boxing match, but didn’t completely rule out a return to football.

Days before his boxing match with former UFC fighter Uriah Hall, former running back Le’Veon Bell is firmly set in his new career. But that doesn’t mean he’s ruled out an eventual return to the gridiron—well, at least not completely.

Bell, who’s already fought against (and beat) fellow former running back Adrian Peterson, said that he’s fully committed to life as a boxer, but said there’s a very specific scenario in which he’d consider suiting up in pads again.

“I feel like it’s a 1% chance,” Bell said, per NFL.com’s Grant Gordon. “It would have to be playoffs, and then like I got a starting job and it’s for a contending team—I have a chance win a Super Bowl. That’d literally be the only chance.”

Bell spent nine seasons in the league for five different teams, most recently playing with the Buccaneers and Ravens in 2021. He most notably spent his first five years with the Steelers, who drafted him 48th overall in 2013. Bell earned four All-Pro selections—two first-team and two second-team—while in Pittsburgh, averaging 1,684 yards from scrimmage and totaling 34 touchdowns from 2014 to ’17.

After sitting out the 2018 season amid a contract dispute, he eventually joined the Jets and Chiefs, but was never able to recapture the success he had in Pittsburgh. He says he began taking up boxing even before his last NFL game in ’21, and hasn’t looked back since changing career paths.

“I just fell in love with the sport over the course of me doing it and I felt me getting better and gaining more confidence as I kept going,” Bell said. “I think once I had that moment when I started sparring other opponents and I started seeing how good I actually was in the ring, I made the decision that I wanted to box.”

Bell and Hall are set to square off on Saturday as part of the card headlined by Jake Paul and Anderson Silva in Glendale, Ariz.