METARIE, La. -- We were all wrong about New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush -- including me.
Last summer, I dubbed Bush the NFL's most-overrated player, pointing to his paltry rushing numbers in his first two seasons as why he hasn't lived up to being the second player taken in the 2006 draft.
The reality is his rushing numbers might never be that great. But that's OK. The reason is simple:
He is the perfect evolutionary running back for the current NFL.
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| Whatever his role, Reggie Bush presents problems for defenses. (Getty Images) |
At a time when more teams are using more spread formations, pushing away from the old, tired thinking of pounding backs into the line of scrimmage 25 times or more a game, Bush has what all offensive teams crave -- speed and versatility.
Years ago, they might have labeled him a specialist. Now, he's simply dangerous. Not in the traditional run-between-the-tackles way, but in the Saints' spread-you-out offense that helped them lead the league in passing yards last season.
There's the curve. Then there's Bush and his speed way out in front of it.
Maybe he's revolutionizing the position the way Lawrence Taylor did as a rush linebacker and Derrick Brooks did as a cover linebacker.
That makes it tough trying to rate and critique Bush because we label him a running back. He isn't that, might never be that, and the Saints are just fine with it.
As a pure running back, Bush is a D student. As a versatile threat, he's a B player. And if he can stay healthy, that can possibly work into an A.
The Saints run my kind of offense: They throw it to score. And Bush is the perfect back in that system. He's not a 25-carry bulldozer. Nor does Payton need one. Not in his aggressive pass offense triggered by Drew Brees.
"The direction the NFL is headed toward you don't see those types of backs anymore," Bush said during a break from the Saints' three-day minicamp this past weekend. "You see guys who are splitting time. You see guys who are able to play running back and multiple positions. The days of the one-running-back system are over. Teams can find guys who can play running back and be split out wide and play the receiver position and do punt return and kick return. It gives them more versatility. That's where the NFL is headed."
Actually, that's where the NFL is right now. That's why any evaluation of Bush has to be done differently. As a versatile, modern-day offensive weapon, he has huge value.
"Teams defend us a lot different when he's out there," receiver Marques Colston said.
Is Bush ever going to be a guy you can hand it to 20 times inside the tackles? No, even though he might dispute that. But five or six carries inside, 10 or so outside and throw to him another 7-10 a game, with a handful of punt returns mixed in, should help produce plenty of points.
Would all that make him worth the second overall pick? Right now, I'd have to say no. But that's not his problem. He didn't pick himself there.
"I love what I have in the player," Payton said. "I hear it debated a lot, the framework for how people try to fix the position. We don't have to worry about that. Since he's been here, we've changed a lot in how we move the football. The most important things are if we're scoring points and are we moving the football. The answer is yes. And he's been a big part of it. That other stuff will sort itself out."
Bush appeared ready for his breakout season in 2008. After six games, he had 294 rushing yards, two rushing touchdowns, 42 receptions, three receiving touchdowns and three punt returns for touchdowns. But then he injured a knee on the final play of the first half of the Saints' seventh game against Carolina, an injury that needed surgery to repair damaged cartilage.
Bush did return to play the final three games, but he wasn't all the way back. Even now, he isn't. He said he's at 80 percent and was given Saturday off by the team after working Friday. He did say he expects to be 100 percent when the Saints open camp.
If you project his six-game totals from 2008 out over a 16-game schedule, Bush's stats would have looked like this: 637 rushing yards, five rushing touchdowns, 109 receptions for 962 yards and eight receiving touchdowns. Let's say he had two more punt returns for scores for a total of five. That would have given him 18 touchdowns total.
That's value. It's just not conventional value.
We see him look for the home run way too much when he runs inside and some say he dances enough to land him on that television competition, which is why he gets ripped to shreds. It's why I lit him up last summer -- and was wrong to do it. Payton brings up a 23-yard touchdown Bush had on a weak-side run against Denver last year that proves Bush can run inside.
"But he's never going to be a guy like Ottis Anderson or Deuce McAllister," Payton said. "He's a different kind of player."
I asked Bush about the criticism that he isn't a between-the-tackles runner and whether it bothers him.
"I really don't pay attention to it," he said. "People are going to say what they want. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Everyone isn't going to like me. I don't expect everybody to. I can't worry about what everybody else thinks. Or what they think I should be doing. You have to make it easy [to block it out]. If you don't, then you allow it affect you and it eats you up inside. And maybe mentally it eats you up and you don't' play and you don't play how you want."
Bush followed that up by saying he can run inside the tackles if asked.
"I run the plays that are called," he said. "I don't think that is going to break me or make me. I don't feel like running the ball between the tackles is going to win us a championship or win us a Super Bowl or me MVP. It's being versatile, being able to run it inside the tackles, outside the tackles, return punts, catch the ball out of the backfield and catch it as a receiver. That's what I do. That's who I am."
That's the football speak for what Bush is on the field. Payton, who is wise enough not to try to pound Bush into the middle of the defense, had another way to define him. He borrowed from a phrase former Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden used to describe Bush in a recent conversation with Payton.
"This guy is a son of a gun to defend," he said.
Isn't that a lot better than just being a running back?
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