FOXBOROUGH — Back before the Patriots faced the Steelers in October, Bill Belichick was asked whether running back Le’Veon Bell stresses a defense with his ability to run inside, run outside, and catch the football.

And the Bell the Patriots saw in Week 7 was just the PG-13 version, whose season hadn’t quite revved up yet. The Bell the Patriots will face Sunday in the AFC Championship game is an R-rated horror film, someone who could ruin the Patriots’ season in a hurry.


“He has such great quickness and burst that’s he’s able to hit that hole, and before you know it, it’s 7 yards and he’s pulling the pile for another 3 yards,” Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower said. “Those 2-yard runs, 3-yard runs turn into 11-yard runs real quick.”

The Patriots have done well against the run this year. They finished the regular season No. 3 against the run, No. 8 in average gain allowed (3.9 yards per carry), and allowed the fewest rushing touchdowns in the NFL (five, and none since Week 8). The Patriots also haven’t allowed an individual 100-yard rusher all season — the Broncos’ C.J. Anderson was the last to do it, in Week 12 of 2015 — and have only allowed 100-plus total rushing yards in three of their last nine games. In fact, the Patriots played seven games against the top 10 rushing leaders this year, and held them to an average of 66.7 yards per game.

But Bell is a different challenge. At 6 feet 1 inch and 225 pounds, Bell has the size to break through arm tackles, the speed to beat defenders around the corner, and the hands to be a weapon in the passing game, both out of the backfield and out of the slot.


But even that doesn’t accurately describe his uniqueness. Bell’s running style is unlike anything the Patriots have seen this year — or perhaps ever. Bell waits behind his offensive linemen . . . and waits . . . and waits . . . and then finally finds an opening and shoots through for a sizable gain.

“Hunting and pecking,” is how Belichick described it during the teams’ Week 7 matchup, a 26-17 Patriots victory with add Steelers quarterback end Ben Roethlisberger injured and on the sideline.

“I don’t think there’s anyone with his style,” Patriots running back Dion Lewis said.

Bell is so patient that he forces defenders to jump out of their lanes, and that’s when he attacks.

“He kind of gets to the line of scrimmage and really just finds that hole or that seam, and he has this incredible burst to be able to get through,” Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia said. “I don’t think you want to sit there and guess. I don’t think you really want to sit there and try to play that game with them.”

Bell, in his fourth year out of Michigan State, had an historic season for the Steelers. He rushed for 1,268 yards and caught 75 passes for 616 yards in just 12 games, becoming the first player in NFL history to average 100 yards rushing and 50 yards receiving per game over a season.


Bell’s running style had Patriots players and coaches watching extra film and repeating their favorite “D” words over and over this past week — “Discipline” and “Do your job.”

“Patience is something that he does, and discipline is something that will kind of counteract that,” Hightower said. “His running style is very unique. It’s definitely hard to duplicate something like that at practice. He does a good job of, obviously, patience — waiting for his linemen to get up on the second level. We’re just going to have to do a good job of getting off blocks and getting to the ball.”

Bell is too good, and too involved in the offense, for the Patriots to simply shut him down on Sunday.

Bell is running the ball a ton — from averaging 16.7 carries in his first six games to averaging 27.5 carries his last eight games, with the Steelers winning all eight. Bell ran the ball 38 times against Buffalo, 29 against Miami in the wild-card round, and 30 times against the Chiefs last Sunday.cq

He’s going to get his yards. In two career games against the Patriots, Bell had 139 total yards in 2013 and 149 total yards in Week 7. But the Patriots won both those games by an average of 17.5 points.cq The key is for the Patriots to minimize his big plays — he averaged only 3.9 yards per carry and 6.8 yards per reception add against them end in October.


And there’s no real secret to corralling Bell.

“First is just doing your assignment,” safety Devin McCourty said. “Then I think it’s just pursuit. We can’t be out there jogging or not getting to the ball.”

It will take a team effort to swarm Bell when he has the ball, and discipline from the defenders to stay in their lanes and not get caught out of position.

“I mean, team defense is the only way to stop it,” Belichick said. “He really forces you to be disciplined. You jump out of there too quickly, then you open up gaps and open up space.

“Le’Veon has a great burst through the hole. He doesn’t really need long to get through there, runs with good pad level. He’s hard to tackle so if you don’t get a full body on him, then he’ll run right through those arm tackles. Really forces everybody to be sound in their gaps. Like I said, getting off and jumping around blocks or trying to get to the hole too quickly just opens up cutback lanes.”

Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolin