Ex-Cougars RB Jerome Harrison thrilled by chance with Detroit Lions

Mike Bell and Jerome Harrison enjoyed seeing each other Tuesday – their first day with the Detroit Lions.

It was a much happier occasion than the last time they had been together.

Ten months after being traded for each other, Bell and Harrison were signed Monday night by the Lions, a few hours after promising rookie Mikel Leshoure tore his left Achilles tendon, ending his season before it began.

“We needed some running backs with Leshoure’s injury and Maurice Morris still not cleared for contact with his (broken) hand,” Lions coach Jim Schwartz said Tuesday. “Now we’ve been able to bring in two quality players with NFL experience.”

Last October, Bell was traded from Philadelphia to Cleveland for Harrison, and the pair ran into each other en route to their new homes.

“We were in the Cleveland airport at about midnight, and I was getting off a plane and Jerome was waiting to get on,” Bell said. “He had a mad face and I had a mad face. He said ‘hey’ and I said ‘hey.’ That was about it.”

Bell and Harrison knew each other in the Pac-10 – Harrison played at Washington State and Bell was at Arizona – and played on the same team in the Senior Bowl.

Now, both players are getting a chance they never expected to get.

For Bell, it is just another shot at the NFL. He rushed for only 99 yards last season between the Eagles and Browns, and thought his career was probably over.

“I was so unproductive last season that I didn’t think my phone would ring,” he said. “I was behind a Pro Bowl-caliber player in Philly in LeSean McCoy, then behind a Pro Bowl-caliber player in Peyton Hillis. I didn’t get much of a shot, and I thought that was probably it.”

That’s why he didn’t hesitate when he got the call in Colorado on Monday.

“I wasn’t going to wait for a second offer,” he said. “I got on the first thing smoking toward Detroit.”

Harrison knew he would get another chance because it has been less than two years since he broke Jim Brown’s Cleveland rushing record with a 286-yard game against the Chiefs.

“That day was a dream come true, to go past Jim Brown for a record,” he said. “But I don’t think much about that day. I’ll think about that when I’m done.”

The Michigan native, though, was thrilled when a call came from the Lions.

“My parents are both from here, and I’m from Kalamazoo,” he said. “This is the team I grew up watching.”

More than the team, though, Harrison was watching a single player.

“I was a Barry Sanders guy. Period,” he said. “He’s the only back that I’ve ever tried to run like. To walk in here today, and put on the same uniform, and see all the pictures of him today, it just blew my mind.”

Schwartz emphasized that Harrison and Bell aren’t in a one-on-one battle for Leshoure’s roster spot.

“It is way too early in camp to be thinking about numbers in that detail,” he said. “We’ve got two new backs who bring different games to the table. They are both going to get every chance to help us and make this team.”

Good news in L.A.

The plan to build a $1.2 billion NFL stadium in Los Angeles took a leap forward when the City Council approved the overall framework for financing the project.

On a 12-0 vote, the council voted for a nonbinding agreement with stadium developer Anschutz Entertainment Group that allows for the demolition and relocation of a section of the Los Angeles Convention Center. That, in turn, would make room for a 72,000-seat stadium just south of Staples Center, which would open in 2016 with the planned name of Farmers Field.

Crowder retires

The NFL will be a bit quieter this season: Channing Crowder says he’s retiring.

Crowder, one of the league’s most notorious trash-talkers, said he has decided to call it a career less than two weeks after being cut by the Miami Dolphins. The veteran linebacker made the announcement on WQAM radio, where he has been a talk-show host.

Game-day testing

The NFL is adding game-day testing for performance-enhancing substances – but not recreational drugs – this season under the new collective bargaining agreement.

The league’s senior VP of law and labor policy, Adolpho Birch, said tests weren’t conducted in the past on game days “because of logistical issues involved, much more so than any philosophical issues.”

Birch says the league has developed a way to test that “is not overly disruptive to the clubs and that respects the game-day process.”

Gabbert gets the nod

Jacksonville’s quarterback situation got scrambled when coach Jack Del Rio ruled David Garrard out of Thursday’s preseason opener at New England.

Blaine Gabbert, the 10th overall pick in April’s NFL draft, will start against the Patriots. Gabbert and third-stringer Luke McCown will share snaps, but Todd Bouman also will be available.

The Jaguars signed Bouman, 39, making this his seventh stint with the franchise in the last five years. In 2010, Bouman was on a tractor helping his father harvest corn in Minnesota when the Jaguars called.