New Detroit Lions running back Rudi Johnson said former Lions running back Tatum Bell stole two of his bags from the locker room Monday.

Johnson said when the bags were returned Tuesday, they were empty; missing were his identification, credit cards, about $200 in cash and some undergarments.

"All this happened once he got released," Johnson said yesterday as he came off the practice field. "He came here to get some stuff out of his locker. That's when he scooped the bags up. Some real shyster, conniving stuff, man."

Bell said it was an honest mistake. He said he intended to pick up some bags for a former teammate, and he grabbed the wrong ones. He said he never opened the bags and doesn't have anything of Johnson's.

"I ain't no thief," Bell told the Detroit Free Press in a phone interview. "I ain't never been one, and I ain't never going to be one. It was all a misunderstanding.

"You can ask anybody I played with for all my years or anybody that know me, man. They know I ain't never stolen nothing from nobody or had those kind of intentions."

Johnson visited the Lions on Monday and agreed to a one-year contract. He officially signed Tuesday, and Bell was released to make room on the 53-man roster.

There are two versions of what happened. Here is Johnson's:

Johnson left his bags in the locker room Monday while he visited team president Matt Millen's office. They were Gucci bags he had gotten at the Pro Bowl.

"It was top of the top," Johnson said.

When he came back in the evening, the bags were gone. His first thought was that the cleaning staff had put them away. He still didn't know where they were when he spoke to the media Tuesday afternoon.

But later Tuesday afternoon, Lions director of security Ricky Sandoval showed Johnson a surveillance video of Bell taking the bags. How did Bell look?

"Suspect," Johnson said.

Was he wearing a ski mask?

"He might as well," Johnson said.

The bags were at a woman's house, and the woman brought them to Lions headquarters — empty. Johnson said he canceled his credit cards.

Johnson joked about it.

"I got the bags back empty," he said. "So he got a bunch of my underclothes. What he's going to do with that, I don't know. ... He left the money clip, but he didn't leave no money in it. He should have took the clip, too. ...

"If anybody's got some Perry Ellis boxers for sale, you know where they came from."

Johnson spoke to Bell afterward. Bell told him it was a mix-up.

"I wasn't even trying to hear all that," Johnson said. "I didn't believe nothing he said."

Earlier, Johnson had spoken to Bell about Detroit — the city, the practice schedule, what to expect.

"That's what makes it that much more bizarre," Johnson said. "You do dirt, stuff will catch up to you, come around to you. It's a situation I ain't even really worrying about. But it is what it is. He did it behind my back. I'm sure he wouldn't do it if I was here."

Johnson called the incident an "all-time classic" but said he would not press charges.

Now, Bell's version:

Knowing he was going to be released, Bell went to clean out his locker. Former teammate Victor DeGrate, who played at the same high school and college as Bell and had been cut on Saturday, asked him to grab his backpack. He grabbed two bags by the computer area, thinking they were DeGrate's.

"I didn't have a clue," Bell said. "I wasn't thinking or nothing at the time. I just grabbed the backpack and grabbed the other bag. It wasn't in nobody's locker or nothing like that. It was just sitting right there by the computers. ... So I grabbed them and put them in the car."

Bell said he took the bags to a female friend of DeGrate's, as DeGrate had asked him to do.

The woman, reached by phone and whose full name is unknown, was upset and declined to comment. DeGrate did not respond to messages.

Later, the Lions contacted Bell and told him they had the surveillance video of him taking Johnson's bags.

"I said, 'If you look on film, I wasn't in no hurry or nothing. I was just going about my day,"' Bell said. "I tried to talk to Rudi yesterday, but he was pretty upset, so I let it go. So now it's that I'm being a thief. I come to found out that the bags weren't whose I thought they was. It was just an honest mistake, man."

Bell said he had nothing of Johnson's and tried to convince Johnson and the Lions of that.

"I didn't go in the bags," Bell said. "I didn't open up no bags. I don't have his stuff.

"I asked him, I said, 'What do I need to do to clear my name?' I asked the organization, 'What do I need to do to clear my name? What do I need to do to reimburse Rudi? What can I do to help?'

"But ain't nobody saying nothing to me. They're just stuck on the fact that I'm a thief. I'm like, 'You all know me better than that.' I ain't never been in no trouble. You know what I'm saying? I ain't never, ever, ever been in no situation like this. I'm just trying to clear my name."

Team officials declined to comment on the incident.