Jaheim
Bell.
Jaheim
Bell.
Florida St.· 6'2"· 241 lb· 4.61s 40
"He is a tight end the way a Swiss Army knife is a screwdriver — technically yes, but nobody drafts him for the base-down job, and that is exactly where NFL rosters make their cuts."Pre-draft read
A move tight end in name only, Bell worked as the joker in a spread offense — flexed to the slot, offset as an H-back, and handed the ball outright on gap-scheme runs. His mechanics are receiver mechanics: clean release, a two-step stem that stresses linebacker leverage, and late hands that snatch crossers away from the frame.
The secondary trait is what happens after the catch. Bell runs like an oversized slot back, breaking pursuit angles and finishing forward instead of sliding. In the run game he is a mover, not an anchor — fine pulling as a lead blocker, exposed when asked to dig out a five-technique. The signature: 241 pounds that carried 73 times in a season and still ran 4.61.
Spread, 11-personnel offense that treats the third tight end as a movable slot/H-back rather than a base-down blocker.
Year 1: core special teams with a 10-15 snap gadget package. Ceiling: designated move tight end in a two-TE spread that never asks him to base block.
Gap-scheme, 12-personnel run offense that needs its second tight end to seal a five-technique on duo and power — he loses that rep every time.
The scheme has to be built around what he cannot do, which is why the role has never found him.
Jaheim Bell 2023 Regular Season Highlights | Florida State TE
Full second-team All-ACC season: seam work, slot alignments and the yards-after-catch profile that made him a Day 3 name.
Jaheim Bell College Highlights, FSU, TE
The Patriots own draft-pick reel, framing exactly the movable-chess-piece role they bought at pick 231.
2021 Duke's Mayo Bowl — Jaheim Bell 69-yard touchdown reception
The signature explosive play from his 159-yard, two-touchdown bowl record game at South Carolina.
Bell is a positionless offensive chess piece who happens to be listed at tight end. Valdosta product, four college seasons across two programs, and a football identity built on matchup math rather than positional craft — too fast for linebackers, too thick for nickels, and never once a true in-line Y.
The production tells the story in three chapters. He broke out as a sophomore at South Carolina in 2021 with 30 catches for 497 yards and five scores, including a school-record 159-yard, two-touchdown Duke's Mayo Bowl performance. In 2022 the Gamecocks turned him into a part-time runner, 73 carries for 261 yards and three touchdowns, and his receiving numbers cratered. The transfer to Florida State in 2023 restored the pass-catcher — 39 receptions, 503 yards, second-team All-ACC — but it also confirmed the flag scouts had circled since 2021: he cannot block a defensive end, and a 6-2, 241-pound frame gives him nowhere to hide.
The board treated him as a late Day 3 flier with a defined role and a hard ceiling. Teams that valued the Combine speed and the versatility grid had him around the sixth; teams that needed a tight end to survive base downs did not have him at all. New England's call at 231 was the correct one — a special-teams body with a package attached, not a plan.
- 01
Alignment versatility
logged meaningful snaps in-line, in the slot, out wide and in the backfield, and carried the ball 84 times in college as a designed runner.
- 02
Vertical speed for the position
a 4.61 forty at 241 pounds that showed up on tape with 69- and 66-yard touchdown receptions in the same bowl game.
- 03
Yards after catch
plays with balance through contact and a runner's feel for cutback lanes, turning eight-yard hitches into first downs on linebackers.
- 04
Ball-tracking down the seam
tracks the deep ball over either shoulder and adjusts late without breaking stride, a rare trait in the Day 3 tight end pool.
- 05
Special-teams value
the movement skills and frame translate directly to coverage units, which is the realistic path to a roster spot for this archetype.
- 01
Point-of-attack blocking
regularly overwhelmed by edge defenders when asked to base block, losing the rep at first contact rather than at the finish.
- 02
Play strength
lean lower half and modest grip strength show up in contested catches and in the effort to sustain a block once the defender resets.
- 03
Positional definition
not big enough to be a Y and not refined enough to be a full-time slot, which narrows the number of schemes that can use him.
- 04
Route detail
wins on speed and stem rather than technique, and his breaks round off against physical defenders who reroute him inside the five-yard zone.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.61sp50
- Vertical
- 35inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | South Carolina | 5 | 1 | 29 | 0 |
| 2021 | South Carolina | 13 | 30 | 497 | 5 |
| 2022 | South Carolina | 12 | 25 | 231 | 2 |
| 2023 | Florida State | 13 | 39 | 503 | 2 |
| Career | — | 43 | 95 | 1260 | 9 |
Transferred from South Carolina to Florida State ahead of 2023. 21 career starts; 9 of them in 2023.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- 2023 Second-Team All-ACC
- 2021 Second-Team All-SEC (PFF)
- 2021 AP All-Bowl Team
- South Carolina single-game record: 159 receiving yards by a TE (2021 Duke's Mayo Bowl)
College teammate archetype: fourth tight end who survives on special teams and spot packages, bouncing between rosters.
Same movement-first frame, but Tremble learned to block well enough to earn base-down snaps — the ceiling Bell never reached.
Athletic testing profile that never converted into a defined NFL role, with the career reduced to practice-squad churn.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
New England drafted him as a special-teams contributor with an offensive package, and that is exactly what the first year produced: 15 games, zero starts, 83 offensive snaps against 176 on kick units, and a scattered role charted as 48 snaps in-line, 22 in the slot, nine at fullback and four out wide. Two catches for 20 yards on three targets was the entire receiving output behind Hunter Henry and Austin Hooper. The 2025 season was harder. Bell never stuck on a 53-man roster, splitting the year between the Eagles' and Steelers' practice squads and being released four times across ten months. Pittsburgh signed him again in May 2026, where he enters camp as one of six tight ends behind Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington.
In hindsight the evaluation was right and the projection was optimistic. The versatility that made him fun to watch in college is a liability in an NFL tight end room, where the third body has to block on base downs and cover kicks in the same afternoon — Bell only does the second. He was never going to be a bad pick at 231; seventh-rounders who play 15 games as rookies clear that bar. But the gadget ceiling some analysts floated requires a coordinator willing to build for it, and no one has. He is a special-teams roster body with tight-end eligibility, which is a real NFL career and not the one his tape promised.
Data note: Transferred from South Carolina to Florida State ahead of 2023. 21 career starts; 9 of them in 2023.