Steelers’ Le’Veon Bell draws comparisons to Marcus Allen

He stops. He surveys. He stutters. He goes.

Le’Veon Bell is no typical running back.

The Pittsburgh Steelers star is so calm, so patient, so deliberate, it’s as if he’s waiting for a door to swing open before he chooses a hole to run through. Like the uncommon apostrophe in his first name, he’s got that hiccup hesitation with the ball in his hands, then explodes through a defense.

“I’m standing back there and I’m watching and I’m like, ‘Uh, are you going to go any time here?’” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said with a smile, describing Bell’s unusual style, which will be on display Sunday when the Steelers play at Kansas City in a divisional game that’s expected to be meat-locker cold.

That technique seems to work just fine. Bell has rushed for 1,002 yards in the last seven games, including 167 in a first-round playoff victory over Miami, a single-game postseason record for the Steelers.

A second-round selection from Michigan State in 2013, Bell mulls over his runs like a picky eater at a buffet table — waiting, waiting, waiting until the perfect moment. He has emerged as one of the most exciting, effective ballcarriers in the game.

“I think we might have to put him up among the Steelers’ all-time greats already,” said center Maurkice Pouncey, after Bell broke Hall of Famer Franco Harris’ single-game playoff record of 158 yards.

The Steelers weren’t waiting around for Bell the last two years in the playoffs. Because he wasn’t available. Knee injuries kept him out of a first-round loss to Baltimore in the 2014 season; and a win at Cincinnati and loss at eventual champion Denver last season. Miami last weekend was Bell’s first postseason appearance of his career.

On one possession that started late in the first quarter of that 30-12 victory over the Dolphins, the Steelers handed the ball to Bell 10 consecutive times — the entirety of the 83-yard drive — culminating with a one-yard touchdown.

“I’m looking at the sideline telling them just keep coming,” Bell said. “I don’t feel fatigued. The offensive line wants to run the ball so we went down there and ran the ball in the end zone.”

Bell has elicited comparisons to Hall of Fame running back Marcus Allen, the former USC star who went on to thrive with the Los Angeles Raiders and Chiefs. Allen, too, had a tendency to coolly examine a situation after taking a handoff, and letting his linemen do their jobs instead of putting his head down and relentlessly powering into a predetermined hole.

“I had patience, but [Bell] might even have a little bit more,” Allen said in a phone interview. “I think he’s the best back in the game because of his versatility, things he can do, where he can line up in various situations.”

Bell is 6 feet 1, and 225 pounds, although he played at closer to 240 in college. He lost some weight before the scouting combine, and has gotten lighter still over the course of his NFL career. He’s muscular and has precious little body fat, but can run with the power of an even bigger man, breaking tackles and pushing piles.

The Steelers ask him to line up wide at receiver on occasion, and he’s even talked about morphing into more of a pass catcher as he gets later in his career, when the wear and tear of playing running back grinds him down.

Allen, who played at 6-2, 210, said there should be a special category for tall running backs, because in some ways their job is tougher.

“Eric Dickerson and I always talk about this,” Allen said of the former Rams and Indianapolis Colts star, who cut an imposing figure at 6-3, 220. “We always say you have to be doubly good at that size because there’s no hiding. If you’re good at that height, you’re really good. The Barry Sanderses, the Emmitt Smiths, those guys could hide behind the linemen. When they’d bend down you couldn’t see them. But there’s no hiding for us tall backs, and we also have a lot more body to hit.”

Bell figures the Chiefs will be gearing up for some big shots Sunday, when they look to exact some revenge for Pittsburgh’s 43-14 win over the visiting Chiefs in Week 4.

“They are probably out seeking blood, since we beat them earlier in the year,” Bell said. “They are going to have a mind-set kind of like we had for Miami. They are getting a rematch. I feel like they probably didn’t play as well last time, so they want to come out and give us all they got.”

Like Allen, Dickerson also counts himself as a Bell fan, and said a lot of the young back’s success can be credited to his offensive line.

“You know the guys up front, and they know you,” Dickerson said. “You know which guys are strong at the point of attack. You know which guys fire off quick. You know the guys that pull the best…. Pittsburgh does a great job of letting him stop, wait for a hole and take off. He’s the best at it right now.”

Just as Bell is patient with the ball in his hands, the Steelers had to be patient with him as a young player.

“He’s a unique player,” Steelers President Art Rooney II said. “He’s got multiple skill sets, a unique running style. Hard to compare him with anybody else… To be honest with you, when he first started doing that [waiting] it was driving us all crazy.”

Once they saw the results, they happily adjusted their attitudes.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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