On the field, Le’Veon Bell’s 17 games with the Jets will be largely forgettable. But off, his contract made a major footprint in showing the value of running backs.

The Jets were bidding against themselves when they signed Le’Veon Bell to a four-year, $52.5 million contract in March of 2019. Just two months after that transaction, the GM who signed Bell to that contract—Mike Maccagnan—was fired.

That was the first indication that the marriage between Bell and the Jets might not be for the long haul. It was followed by other escalating strains, like the training-camp disagreement between Bell and Adam Gase about the health of Bell’s hamstrings, and ultimately Bell’s liking tweets criticizing Gase’s usage of him after Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals. Tuesday night, absent a trading partner for the contract that only the Jets were willing to give 19 short months ago, the team announced it had