Purdue WR David Bell Met with Steelers at NFL Combine

INDIANAPOLIS — The Steelers have three free-agent wide receivers, so it’s no surprise that they are scouting wide receivers closely. Those include players that are starting to pop up heavily in the mid-round conversation. One of those players is David Bell from Purdue.

When speaking to the media Wednesday morning, Bell confirmed that he had met with members of the Steelers brass, according to Derrick Bell of Sports Illustrated.

A big, fluid player with great ball skills, Bell’s skillset is intriguing. Bell is a primary jump-ball receiver who wants to go up and get it. With battles with guys like Greg Newsome in the past, he is a battle-tested receiver with proven production. With his certain skills, Bell looks up to Chicago’s Allen Robinson as a role model for his skillset.

“I actually been watching him since he was at Penn State,” Bell said. “I always had the opportunity to watch college football and growing up in the Midwest, the Big Ten was something that was always on TV. So just being able to watch him at a Penn State and at Jacksonville and also here with the Chicago Bears but the contested point catch, just the way how he’s aggressive attacking the ball and stuff like that.”

Robinson is a contested-catch connoisseur. That is exactly what Bell is going to bring to the table, although he is a bit more fluid than someone like Robinson. Still, if the Steelers were to draft him, it would be to get a more consistent contested-catch target in the receiving corps.

The Steelers have three pending free agents at wide receiver in JuJu Smith-Schuster, Ray-Ray McCloud and James Washington.

Click for more coverage from Alan Saunders, Nick Farabaugh and Dan Angell, live from Indianapolis at the 2022 NFL Combine.