After going from the starting lineup to the game-day inactive list in seven days, one would understand if rookie running back Mike Bell was a tad flummoxed over another hairpin curve in a rookie season that has seen more unexpected turns than a mountain road.
Bell, though, simply saw it as a message — one he clearly received.
“I’ve got to fight harder,” he said. “You’ve got to get 2 and 3 (yards on carries). You can’t accept 1(-yard-runs). I’m going in with a different attitude.”
Only that, he believes, will get him back on the 45-man active roster for Sunday’s showdown with the San Diego Chargers.
“I know they have a tough defense, but I played against a lot of tough defenses in college and I have the best offensive line, so I’m going to find a way to make some plays,” Bell said. “I know the running game is looking for a spark, so if I get a chance, I’m definitely going to do it.”
But his back-to-back games against Indianapolis and Pittsburgh were about as opposite as two performances can be. He gained 136 yards on 15 carries against the Colts; a week later he had two more rushes but 108 fewer yards.
“The only game that he didn’t play at the level that I was hoping he would play in was the Pittsburgh game,” Head Coach Mike Shanahan said, “but that doesn’t mean that he is in the doghouse or anything.”
“I don’t think I did anything wrong to get into his doghouse,” Bell said, “so he did what was best for the team and I think at that time he felt Nash deserved a chance and he did, so (Shanahan) did what was best for the team.”
So now he must start anew, and attempt to prove once again to Shanahan and the offensive brass that he is that best option.
“I’m working hard, watching a lot of film, taking a lot of criticism and I’m just trying to get better,” Bell said. “I watched some tape and thought I left some yards on the field (at Pittsburgh).
“I was just getting so frustrated, I probably started deviating from the system and the game plan, and that’s a mental mistake, a rookie mistake and it’s definitely a learning experience, so I’m just going to learn from that and just trust the system and trust myself.”
And, he hopes, that will make his bosses trust him.
Tags: Mike Bell, Running backs, San Diego Chargers
Thankk G-d. The team finnally found a true back and the best one out of tatum cobbs and people is mike so that great. Mike is awsome and hopefully Shanahan will see that and put him as starter not only against SD but for good.
Maurice
singing out…..
If you want a true back you have to go with Tatum. When healthy he has the burst and speed that is comparable to Portis. Mike is slow and likes to duck his head when going into the line. Mike is good in the open field but does not have the speed to go all the way. Tatum’s number does not lie. He is going to be a great back.
We can’t depend on the backs this year as much as in past, that’s it, end of story. Neither Bell has proven success over multiple games. Everyone is screaming for Mike Bell, he had ONE good game? Everyone is screaming for Jake’s head, he has had 6 GREAT GAMES, including the loss to Indy!
We need to shift some of, if not MOST of the blame off Jake and push it onto the offensive line and the backs. The Raider game? Andrew Walter had hours in the pocket at times, Jake had 1-2 seconds each time. The Indy game? Did Payton even wrinkle his jersey? Nope, Jake was a Man On The Run as usual, we NEED TO PROTECT THE QB and things will fall into place.
Support the Snake!
http://www.letplummerplay.com
Support the Snake, you’ve gotta be kidding me?
First off, the Bell’s are fine, and a capable duo when healthy. Tatum is going to find a way to hurt himself regardless, so let him sit until he can man up. Mike is a hard runner that got ahead of himself because of that ONE good game. He is a Bronco style runner, and will be a good back for this team. As for Plummer, you must not watch a lot (or know alot) of football. Don’t just look at his rating, completion percentage, interceptions, or lack of TDs. Look at how he is making his mistakes, where he’s throwing the ball (and how open those DBs are when they make the picks, he may as well have been throwing to them). Plummer has two or three good passes in a game, two or three games out of 9, and you give him props? Get real. Plummer will never win this team a championship. Wake up
Right now the best back we have is Tatum. This is for a couple of reasons, speed of course, but more importantly, VISION. Tatums ability to find the best possible hole is what I think sets him apart from the other backs. Although M. Bell runs a little harder when contact is made and in my opinion cuts a little harder, he runs by the book too much, puts his head down, and lacks that vision of seeing the best cut back hole and second level defenders. I think vision comes with experience. That is why Tatum is our best back right now. If M. Bell can get better vision and gain a little more speed in the next year or two I think he will be the better back, but until then Tatum is our guy and when healthy he will produce. He is still 15th in the league in total rushing yards after missing a few games, and sharing some carries. Thats good.
tseely3@mymail.slcc.edu
dsrainmaker, as I have said many times before this year. Jake is not a stat guy and nor does he care what the stats say. The only thing he cares about is the most important stat of all. WINNING! But you probably don’t know what his win to loss ratio is. You probably just sit at your house and watch NFL Live and then go off what they say about Jake. I bet you hate George Bush too huh? Anyways he is 39-13 with the broncos. Thats damn good so get off Jake’s back, all he does is go out and win ball games.
tseely3@mymail.slcc.edu
This is just sad people. The blame doesn’t go on ANYONE. games are won by the team. Mike is just a rookie with lack of experience and overconfidence, Tatum (who has proven himself obviously from last year) has the toe issue, Plummer wins games for us. The offensive like (I think) is who to blame. without the leadership of Matt Lepsis on the left side, a pat of the heart of the offensive line is missing. Nalen and Hamilton are some of the Elite yes but lepsis brought something else to the table, that something that gave the line the confidence they need when they need it. Lepsis was a true fighter. He’d get through anything. he had a passion to win! the main ingrediant in football is PASSION. If you don’t have passion then the whole story breaks down. but solely, the offensive struggles don’t have anything to do with the backs. it has to do with pride, leadership, and self-confidence.
Also Mike is showing the greatest attitude any back could. Accepting Shannie’s decision to bench him for last weeks game with humility and being humble. I think it built his work ethic and will turn him into one of the great backs of the decade next year if not this year.
ok i agree with broncomaniac. Mike is a rookie and is learning the game. Tatum who has been good is now doign worse, becuase of the injury and just himself. Mike Bell, is an extremely hard runner. He plays by the book because he is a rookie who is and will learn not to. Shanahan will learn that if a player can take a week being benched and say”i left yards on the feild and i have to try harder” then that guy knows leadership and how to take a mistake and turn it around and make him tryharder, Shanahan will find that Mike will be a better starter.
Now as for plumer. We should have kept Greise from a few years back. Plummer is just not consistant. He needs to raise his acuracy and his power.
MB#20 I’m glad you are a real fan, but it’s the Denver Broncos not Denver Bronco(Mike Bell). Both Bell’s are good and getting better. Jake is good and getting better. Tight ends are good and getting better. Wide outs are great. O line is good and getting better. Except for 1 WR, 1 TE, FB, part of the line and Jake, the rest of the offense has been playing together less than 2 years. Same with the D. The line, Darrent, DJ swithched sides last year when Ian came back. The D is better than last years D, and the O has more talent than last year. By play off time the O will be better than last year. And the Broncos did pretty good last year. The Broncos have a traditional standard. Team is #1, no showboating, no running out of bounds(even if you just recovered a fumble and are the smallest guy on the team) the O line doesn’t talk, practice hard, and don’t leave anything on the field. A few players got reminded of these things last week. They won’t forget again. Whether You like Jake or not, He wins. And for certain, the Broncos have a better back up QB than the last several years. I would like to see a couple of blowouts so Cutler could play a little. I hope he is better than Jake. I hope he is better than #7. I didn’t want to use his name in case that is sacreligeous. What do I know though, I said Jake would throw less than 10 int’s this year. I do believe the Broncos will be a great teams by the play offs, Shanahan knows what he is doing,
Indy isn’t getting better, and if Rivers keeps playing like he did last Sunday; Cutler better be better than Jake.
I disagree that Tatum is the real deal. Part of the deal is staying healthy and he just isn’t tough enough to be the real deal. Tatum is great when he has a counterpart taking half of the snaps. I like both Tatum and especially Mike Bell, and I would like to see them work together more. From what I’ve seen it looks like Tatum feels threatened by Mike and plays poorly whenever Mike gets into the game and gets the equal playing time. It’s like Tatum begins playing poorly on purpose or something. As for Jake Plummer, I think we need to stick with him this year and trade him to a team that desparately needs a quality quarterback and get a high draft pick for him. I like Plummer and he is a great QB, but this is Denver, Colorado…we don’t need just a great QB…we require a Hall QB. I don’t know if Jay Cutler is that guy, but I sure hope so. We need some sort of Elway, Manning, Brady, Favre leading this football team…cause it’ll be the only way we’ll ever win a Championship again. It’s best to get it done before our defense ages too much…we only have a 2-4 year window left I think. At least until we have to begin rebuilding our team chemistry and stuff.
Man some of you just don’t have a clue. It’s hard to read some of your bogus thoughts. Griese?, are you serious!
Mike is the man. He runs with more urgency than tatum. I think Shanahan pulled him from the Raiders so he would be healthy for the chargers. Be ready to see mike start. As for the one who thinks Griese should return, I agree with Tque33, you can’t be serious, 4 years of him was enough. Jakes the man and is winning, but Tque33’s metaphor of Bush doesnt work. Bush is not winning, we are all losing because of him.
ok so we have soem reall great supporters here. Its great that yall feel the same way about the bells situation, an how mike should be playing. I hope cutler gets his chance. When he does he will shoot out of a cannon. He will be out next “Hall QB”
Shannie knows what he is doing with the rb’s!!! Could you imagine the picks we could get for 3 or 4 Clinton Portis calliber rb’s? Make them fight it all day long if we can get more leadership and top picks!!!!
Mike is a great rookie back, I want to take nothing from him. However if Tatum is healthy he is the best back that we have. Mike in another year may very well be the better RB. Shannahan made a statement by doing what he did. A message that I’m sure was a wake up call. Lets face it. We don’t see what happens day in and day out in practice. Shannie will put the best players on the field when it comes to game day. As for Grease Ball, give me a break. Jake is a winner, with heart. He wants to win the game as much as anyone on the field.
WOW! Along with the GRIESE was good comments how can any of you say JAY CUTLER will be good, great, one of you even said he will be the next HALL OF FAME QB! OH MY GOD! Has anyone on this board looked at Jay Cutlers College record? Do some research on it, he STARTED 4 straight years for Vanderbelt, and he HAD A LOSING RECORD ALL 4 YEARS! He is not Leinart, he is not Vince Young and they struggle like crazy, the only thing Cutler has to show, is his sidekick 2, and a winning record in HIGH SCHOOL. That’s right my fellow Denver fans, HIGH SCHOOL, heck my truck driving dad had a winning record in High School! If everyone would get off Jake’s back, stop booing him and calling for him to be benched, maybe he’d actually not flip people off and just play the game. I hate to offend the diehards here, I am one, but put Jake under center with Terell Davis, Eddie Mac, Rod Smith and Shannon Sharpe and Jake too, would have won the superbowl!
Cutler needs to coach high school football, he may have a chance at that. We will all regret it if Jake is benched and eventually traded. Don’t know what you got until its gone!
http://www.LetPlummerPlay.com
hey,,\\
what is the big deal here,, We are 7-2 and playing for first place on national tv Sunday it don’t get any better then this let Shanny worry about the “O” we all know he knows what he’s doing ,, he’s not an offensive gemius for nothing,, we’ll be fine,, and we can play with anyone,, when Shanny fixes the “O” unstoppable is superbowl 41 …. Chargers are Going down!!!!
Hey tatejb, on the Bush metaphor I was talking about how dsrainmaker just follows what the media says and doesn’t have a mind of his own. Not a winning or losing aspect.
Can you believe how many times some media person has asked about the KC, Seattle or 2nd SD game. If you look past a bad team you can lose. Looking past 1 of the top 5 teams in the NFL would be a disaster. The patience the players and coach showed is to be commended. Anybody been able to log on to Billy Thompson’s blog? I’d like to know what He thinks of Jake and Jay.
Wow how stuck up can you be tatum. “But as long as I can run I’m going to play.” uh who said so Shanahan sure did not.“I think I lost a step a little bit,” a little bit dude you did horrible on sunday. Wow Shanahan really needs to have a talk with tatum he needs to see the press confrereces where Shanahan says he isnt sure about the back yet he needs to see how they do in practice, but only fully healthy guy is mike bell. Mabey Tatum should have a look at that.
Denver needs this game. At home, they need to capitalize on the absence of Merriman, and i believe Jake will do that. Without Merriman, their pass rush is not as ferocious. And now with the TE threat established as they unveiled last week, it gives SD one more thing to think about.
The D is going to need to strap it on tight. Inside the red zone, who do you focus on? LT is an obvious choice, but they also have the beast that is Gates. A pass rush is a must; go get’em Elvis…and LT has got to be held to two scores or less. I believe our D will give some, so the O must put up over 20 to win this one. hit em’ in the mouth denver.
MikeBellNumba20, hey man seriously stop writing, your views are dumb,sure M.Bell is a good RB but you have written about him around 30 times this week it’s creepin’ everybody out so shutup or talk about something else.
A healthy Tatum trumps a healthy Mike. However, if tatum’s as hobbled as it sounds, mike should recieve the majority of the carries against SD. Rest tatum up as much as you can, but still get him some reps. His cutting ability may be limited, but he’ll still have that great straight speed that gives him the opportunity to break a long one on any given play. i do agree that mike cuts harder than a healthy tatum; no doubt when tatum’s got two bad toes. So mike’s gotta be the primary guy on Sunday night.
Tque33, I agree on the parroting, thats what I enjoy about blogs, hearing new minds, and can’t agree more on MikeBellNumba20, I am starting to think its really Mike Bell writing. I want to repeat, Mike Bell will be starting against SD.
seems like LetPlummerPlay has a ‘relationship’ with Jake
despite Jay Cutler’s college record he carried that team with average players and will do well in the NFL.
How do u know tatejb? that mike will be starting
Tatejb-
If you knew M Bell you would never even consider that he would write this stuff. Mike is one of the most humble young men you could ever meet. Whether he starts this week will be a decision made today or tomorrow. Mike is fully supportive of the other backs on the team and is not a guy who worries about stats. He will become a very good back in the NFL whether it is with Denver or not. Every player on the field is one play away from being a potential HOF or a career ending injury. As far as Cutler goes, there are many players who played for a horrible college team but went on to have outstanding careers. He will get his opportunity and we will all find out if he is a Peyton Manning or a Ryan Leaf. But to suggest that he “needs to coach high school football” is ludicrous. He has probably forgotten more football than any of us geniuses know (myself included)
I think Tatum is a great back but I rather have the tatum of last year then this year. plain and simple. coming off the bench he gave an immediate spark. as the starter he is simply not the same, I dont care what the stats say.Mike bell except for 1 game has shown what we need and are looking for to be a denver back. if we bench him because of 1 game then jake should of been benched after the rams game. The guy has to get more opportunities to show what he has before we begin judging him. The way I see it, when mike bell doesnt start (counting 2nd half of colts game) we have never scored more than 17 pts. If cutler starts and doesnt have a good game in his 1st nfl game are we going to say he’s not the real deal or will we say that he will continue to get better as he plays more? Wasnt elway given his opportunities to show he was great? Lets give M.Bell a chance and that way tatum will be able to rest for hopely the playoffs, by then we’ll be able to tell better if indeed M.Bell is the real deal or not and maybe we can get that 1-2 punch that some of us are looking for.
Exactly talentedj. Let Mike play and lets try hi out for a while. We will see how he does. if he doesnt do well we will have Tatum rested for when we need him. Also kupesdad, dotn you think mike should be starting though, over tatum?
peace out
i just heard Shanahan said he is going to start tatum sunday night… is that true… are you kidding me. First of all Tatum said he would not be fully healed until the offseason and he lied to Shanahan sayign he was one hundred percent last week. Wow shanahan is thick headed.
Kupesdad,
I wasn’t being literal, a poor attempt at humor maybe.
Shanahan did say he would start (tatum), but knowing shanny, he is so tricky and never shows his true hand. Tatum will be in pads and will get carries, and may even start, but Mike will get the most yards. They both are great runners, but Tatum is hurt and needs to heal. Shanny is modivating Mike, he will be fresh and hungry.
MB#20,
With my son being on the team I hesitate to speculate about who should start over who. I don’t want anything I say to alienate my son from his teammates. I do know that anyone who has ever had turf toe on both feet would hardly think it was a minor injury. All of your balance and explosiveness is generated by the ball of your foot so cutting and exploding is excruciating. I think the offense is getting better every week and hopefully everyone will be healthy come playoff time. I have been a Steelers fan for 35 years so it’s been a tough transition to root for the Broncos but I have learned through Chris that it is a class organizination and you couldn’t ask for a better coach, so I’m sure he will do whats best for the team.
Tate,
Sorry for being so sensitive, I guess I didn’t pick up on the attempt of humor but Mike is one of my son’s best friend on the team so I have gotten to know him pretty well and he is an outstanding young man who is overcoming huge odds to play the game he loves. I think what gets him in trouble is he still plays the games like a kid and gets very excited which may rub some people the wrong way. Anyway, let’s take it to the chargers and roll through the rest of the season to the superbowl
Thats cool, i hope we have a good game today!! go broncos!!!