Potential yet to be realised
Friday 27 February 2015 16:31, UK
On Wednesday Reggie Bush was cut by the Detroit Lions, marking another point in a career that promised a lot, but delivered little.
Alex Ferguson chronicles Bush’s NFL career, and laments what could have been….
Bush was the biggest player to cross the boundary of pro and college since Peyton Manning, and we were all excited.
The 2006 NFL Draft had everyone who loved college football and the NFL drooling. Why? Because of one man: Reggie Bush.
He had completed a 2005 season where he was the Michael Jordan of the college football world, combining blazing speed with balance, sending jaws dropping all over America. I saw him personally in a game against Arizona State that year, all I could think of was his golden future in the pros. It was guaranteed.
Bush was the biggest player to cross the boundary of pro and college since Peyton Manning, and we were all excited.
We celebrated that New Orleans – so famous for having poor draft picks – finally got it right by selecting him second in the NFL Draft. They had a one-man Madden 2006 playing for them, and he’d take them to the promised land. The corporate marketeers thought similarly, dropping millions on him.
He started off with energy, having 1,307 yards rushing and receiving and spurred the Saints into the play-offs. And even if Drew Brees really was the Saviour of New Orleans, Reggie Bush was seen as the King of Bourbon Street.
And although Vince Young won the NFL Rookie Of The Year in Miami that year, nobody in the press corps could have given two hoots about him, because it was all about Reggie. And Reggie knew it.
But pride comes before a fall and in 2007 and 2008, the injury bug – which plagues all NFLers – got its teeth into Bush. He only played 22 games. We wondered if we’d ever see Reggie at USC-esque levels. In 2009 he returned, stayed pretty healthy, scored a late-game touchdown that took the Saints to the Super Bowl, and he won a ring. The plague would be back in 2010, torching his fibula and putting him away from the action for eight games.
The Saints, fed up with the injuries, underperformance and bad PR they were getting for some of Bush’s adventures (he took illegal benefits in college, a big reason why Pete Carroll – formerly Bush’s coach at USC – left for Seattle) traded him to Miami for lesser players in 2010.
Bush’s comeback in 2011 was terrific, as the player boasted 500-plus yard games, including a four-game stretch at the season’s end where he had consecutive 100-yard affairs, including a 203-yard burst against Buffalo. He finished with 1,000 yards, and we all said: “that’s the Reggie Bush I’ve wanted to see.” Maybe the star was reborn, after all. 2012 brought with it nearly 1,000 yards in rushing .
The Detroit Lions decided that Bush’s skills were too good to stay in the south, so they signed him to a four-year, $16m contract ($4m guaranteed). He returned the favour with another 1,000-yard season in 2013.
But in 2014 injury flu returned in the form of an ankle injury he would never really shake off, leaving Lions fans disappointed with the feeling of wasted potential. Bush’s name would be said on the TV, and you’d wait for the words “when healthy” to complete the sentence, but Bush rarely was in the Motor City.
And although he attempted to come back – as Lions GM Martin Mayhew said – he simply couldn't. Mayhew said that Bush left the Lions’ clubhouse with “great respect”. For the record, I’ve rarely heard a GM say about a cut player “on your bike”.
Maybe he was a warrior because he behaved like one. Or maybe Bush was playing for the next paycheck. Maybe he was playing to get the star back that had faded so much since his arrival in 2006. But one thing’s for certain: Bush had a hell of a lot of talent. And with the news on Wednesday he’d been cut (for the first time in his career), all that excitement that I had back in 2006 now feels like a bit of a waste.
