Le’Veon Bell was worth the wait in Jets debut

Le’Veon Bell waited 603 days to get back on the football field for a game.

He will have to wait at least another eight days for a win.

The Jets new running back looked sharp after sitting out all of last season and this preseason, but it wasn’t enough to spark a struggling offense in a 17-16 loss to the Bills on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.

Bell asked Adam Gase not to hold him back, and the Jets coach obliged, using him early and often. Bell took 17 carries for 60 yards and caught six of nine targets for a touchdown and a two-point conversion, hardly ever coming off the field in what turned into a crushing loss.

“I just wanted to do enough for us to win the game,” Bell said. “Obviously that wasn’t the outcome today.”

Bell was playing his first game since Jan. 14, 2018, with the Steelers. The Jets, after signing him to a four-year, $52 million contract, chose to hold him out of the preseason, believing that his work in practice would be enough to get him ready for the regular season. It did not look like he had much rust to shake off, taking his first carry for 5 yards to a big cheer from the crowd and staying active throughout the game.

“I think he answered all of the questions where everybody said he was rusty after a year off,” Gase said. “I’m sure he proved a point today.”

Bell said it didn’t feel like it had been more than a year and a half since the last time he played.

“It felt like normal,” he said. “I still had fun playing the game today. Even though the outcome wasn’t what I wanted it to be — obviously I’m a competitive guy, so I’m not happy at the fact we lost the game — but I’m just happy I went out there and was able to compete again.”

Bell provided the only points the offense scored all day. On a third-and-goal, he lined up wide and caught a low pass from Sam Darnold for a 9-yard touchdown with 7:01 left in the third quarter. Then on the ensuing two-point conversion, Darnold scrambled and improvised, finding Bell in the corner of the end zone as the Jets went ahead 16-0.

Things only went downhill from there, though. Bell kept the Jets’ comeback hopes alive momentarily on their final drive, with his second effort converting a fourth-and-1, but it was the final first down they got.

“Offensively, I don’t think we ever really got it clicking, outside of maybe one drive,” Bell said. “It was literally little minor details over the course of the game. … We gotta clean up a lot of things and get better.”