Detroit Lions running back Joique Bell, a restricted free agent, could be signed to a long-term deal instead of being offered a tender. General manager Martin Mayhew explained the situation on Friday morning.

“We can tender him, he’s going to be here,’’ Mayhew said. “We met with his agent a couple nights ago. We had a good discussion, there’s a possibility we might work on long-term deal with him, but either way he’s going to be with us.

“The reason why we would talk about (a long-term deal) is we want something that would make sense for us. Sometimes it is in those situations, sometimes it doesn’t make sense for us to do something long-term. We’ll kind of see how that dialogue goes. We just started talking to him,’’ Mayhew added.

Bell, who is entering his fourth season in Detroit, provided a one-two punch at running back along with Reggie Bush last season. He finished with 166 carries for 650 yards and eight touchdowns. Bell (Wayne State) also had 53 catches for 547 yards.

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