For Michigan fans who watched Ronnie Bell grind through five seasons in maize and blue, Monday’s news from Las Vegas was familiar.
The Raiders released the former Wolverines wide receiver from their practice squad, a corresponding move after signing former Chicago Bears draft pick Tyler Scott, the Raiders announced.
Bell had been in silver and black for less than a month.
After New Orleans waived him at the end of August, Las Vegas signed him Sept. 3. He never appeared in a regular-season game for the Raiders and was not elevated during Las Vegas’s 35-27 win over the Saints on Sunday — a matchup that would have put him across from his most recent employer.
That brief Vegas chapter is the latest chapter in a journeyman NFL path that began when San Francisco took him 253rd overall in 2023. In Ann Arbor, Bell was more than a late-round projection.
He played 47 games from 2018 to 2022, finishing with 145 catches for 2,269 yards and nine receiving touchdowns. He led the 2022 team with 62 receptions and 889 yards, earned third-team All-Big Ten honors, and helped Michigan win the Big Ten title.
A torn ACL limited him to one game in 2021. He came back as a captain and a steady presence in a run-first offense.
The NFL has been harder. Bell has 10 receptions for 113 yards and four touchdowns in 28 games, most of them with the 49ers.
He later spent time with Detroit and New Orleans, catching a 16-yard touchdown for the Saints in Week 18 last season. Special teams and depth-receiver work have kept him employed; a lasting roster spot has not.
Michigan people will recognize the pattern. Bell was never the biggest or fastest receiver on the roster, but he was reliable, tough after the catch, and willing to play through a long rebuild.
Those traits travel. They just have not been enough, so far, to lock down a 53-man job in a league that turns over practice-squad receivers weekly.
At 26, he is not finished. Practice-squad releases often lead to another workout, another short-term deal, another chance to stick.
For Wolverine fans, the hope is the same as it was when he left Ann Arbor: that the next stop gives him more than a few weeks.
Until then, Monday’s transaction is another reminder that college production and NFL security are different games.
