Le’Veon Bell believes he has not yet played his best.

The new Jets running back believes he can be even better than he was with the Steelers now that he is in a new uniform.

“Through this whole time,” Bell said in an interview with Sports Illustrated, “I’m still thinking, the first five years in Pittsburgh, people ain’t really seen it yet. Because I still feel like while I was in Pittsburgh, they wasn’t trying to let me go crazy, like, really let me put my foot on the pedal. I feel like now I am in a better situation. I made that bet on myself — a team’s gonna want me, they’re gonna value me, they’re gonna want me to succeed, put me in the right situations to make the plays easier for me, not harder.”

Bell was a workhorse for the Steelers. He had 406 touches in 2017 before sitting out last year during a contract dispute. He ran for 1,361 yards in 2014 and crossed the 1,200 mark again in 2016 and ’17.

Still, he thinks he can be better.

“I know I can do more,” Bell said. “That’s not anywhere close to being my potential or my ceiling. In Pittsburgh, we had a lot of weapons, a lot. So I feel like in Pittsburgh, people felt like everybody gotta get the ball or do this, that or the other. I don’t feel like I had a lot of opportunities like I could have.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Bell shed some light on the negotiations with the Jets. Even though the contract did not hit the $15 million annual average value he was hoping to land in free agency but the four-year, $52.5 million contract the Jets gave him does have incentives and escalators that could push the value to $15 million per year.

“I understand the base salary is $13.1 or whatever it is,” Bell said. “But there are incentives to where you have the ability to make $15 million. They met me in the middle. Yeah, we know you want $15 million a year. They know that’s what I ultimately wanted, but, you sat out football all year. So you gotta understand us—I’m talking as the Jets—you still gotta understand us, from our side, we gotta protect ourselves. We can’t put all this in there and you’re still not the same player. …. So if I go out there, I’m the same player, I go out there and do what Le’Veon Bell does, what they expect me to do, I can meet that. That’s something I can agree to. Easy deal.”

Bell also said he clicked with Jets coach Adam Gase.

“When I talked to coach Gase, I felt like me and him were on the same level,” he said. “He’s not talking to me like I’m under him. He’s the head coach, but he’s talking to me like we’re on the same level. When I talked to the GM [Mike Maccagnan], he talked to me [and] we’re on the same level. This is a guy that is higher than me, don’t get me wrong, he’s the GM. But it’s like we’re talking like we’re talking – you respect me, I respect you.”

Bell said he and Gase talked about plays he likes, something that did not happen with Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.

“[Gase] is excited. I’m excited,” Bell said. “He’s talked to me about plays I like and designs and what routes and things I like to run and how comfortable I am with playing other positions. We’ve talked. That’s why I’m so excited because I feel comfortable enough to even talk to him like that, like we should try to run this. I would never go to coach Tomlin. I remember like my rookie year, when I was coming into camp, I remember there was a play and I was like ‘I like this play, we should try to run this play.’ Coach Tomlin was like, ‘shut up L Bell, you just run the ball.’”