Pittsburgh Steelers running back Le'Veon Bell said the sides are "a lot closer" to an agreement on a long-term contract extension than they were last year, when he waited until six days before the start of the regular season to sign the franchise-tag tender.
On Tuesday, Chris Wesseling of NFL.com passed along comments Bell made on the NFL Network after being ranked as the league's fifth-best player in the outlet's annual countdown of the top 100.
"I don't want to have the replications of what happened last year," he said.