Le’Veon Bell does not like Jets head coach Adam Gase. The running back made that clear, especially after liking social media posts critiquing Gase’s use of Bell in the offense.
It's fair to ask, however, whether Bell was being real or fake by doing that. On the hand, it seems real because he made his thoughts known publicly; on the other hand, Bell wasn’t actually the one making the posts.
If anyone could shed some light on this, it’s NFL linebacker Sam Acho, who authored “Let the World See You: How to Be Real in a World Full of Fakes.”
“That’s definitely being real,” Acho said of Bell on The DA Show. “I think that’s keeping it real. Obviously you saw with Jamal Adams, people [said], ‘Well, he was a disgruntled player, and he should have stayed.’ Well, he decided to leave, went to Seattle and Seattle obviously is doing unbelievable. Well, you see Le’Veon Bell get released and Adam Gase says, ‘We don’t want him. He didn’t want to be part of the team. Let’s get rid of him.’ So now you see what happens.”
The Jets have now cut ties with multiple All-Pros in recent months. Gase has also seen many of his former players excel in other teams' systems.
“With Le’Veon Bell and Jamal Adams, those are two really good players, and sometimes you got to listen to the player,” Acho said. “The coach might say one thing, but if there’s a multitude of players saying, ‘There’s something about this culture or this team [that’s off],’ it might be wise to listen to them.”
Acho, who played in the NFL from 2011 to 2019, said many people in and around the league struggle with keeping it real.
“You see it everywhere – not just in NFL locker rooms,” he said. “You see it in businesses, you see it in bars, you see it at home a lot of times – I saw it in myself. I saw myself pretending to be something I wasn’t.”
Acho received his MBA from one of the top business schools in the world, the Thunderbird School of Global Management, but didn’t tell any of his coaches or teammates about it.
“I didn’t want them to think that I wasn’t fully invested in football,” he said. “I saw the fake within myself, but I also saw it in locker rooms and everywhere really."