Are you being sarcastic with this stuff or just unknowingly making our arguments for us? It wasn't a great cut because it wasn't a little seam, but a five yard wide hole across. Any return man in the league could have made that cut. He didn't have great vision on the run, but ran laterally in both directions before he finally did what most running backs would have done in the first place, which is take it up the field. He got lucky against a defense that gave up a ton of points the prior week. His yards per carry over his career is terrible. His fumbles per attempt are also very bad.
We will be better off without him. Scatbacks are a dime a dozen and most don't fumble a lot, and run laterally or backwards. Someone please remind Reggie which way our goal is before every play would you. He reminds me of Forest Gump where he runs laterally across the field until the coaches point him in the right direction.
An article on the matter..... New Orleans Saints haven't figured out how to use Reggie Bush - Michael Rosenberg - SI.com
Did you miss the part when I said that I'm CRITICAL of him? It was a GREAT cut on the punt return because of how fast he did it. Notice the AZ player closest to him basically come out of his shoes and fall to the ground when he makes the cut. Yeah, any return man could have made it...whatever. I honestly don't care what every other return man would have done. All I care about is that he made the right move at the right time and maxed out on the play for the SAINTS. For that play, you've got to give him an A. He didn't have great vision on the run? Okay, you go ahead and try to convince yourself of that. People weren't calling the run spectacular because he didn't do anything special. He had great vision to see the situation up the field after getting knocked around and making two other guys miss at the same time. When you elude three guys on a running play, you're usually not going to have that many more to beat. Like I said, I've been critical of him and still am, but I'm not gonna act like he doesn't do great things at times. His yards-per-carry average for his career is 4.0 now with this season. So that's at least decent, not terrible like you said. All I know is this: His 46-yard TD run against AZ = franchise playoff record His 83-yard TD punt return against AZ = franchise playoff record and 3rd longest in NFL postseason HISTORY His 88-yard TD reception against the Bears in the NFC Championship = franchise playoff record and NFC Championship playoff record So along with the IDIOTIC stuff he does like trying to field that punt, he does some damn good stuff at times too. I'm just trying to be fair. The fumble sucked and he fumbles too much, but thank God he got into the end zone on that pass because we were having major troubles trying to get a yard running when we needed it. And when I brought up Jason David, I brought it up to show that if Payton was reluctant to get rid of a guy that was as bad as David was for the Saints, he will likely be more reluctant to get rid of someone who actually does some valuable things despite the stupid mistakes. It's basically been the story of his career so far. But at least I can think of a number of games where he basically took over and really helped us win this year (St.Louis, Atlanta, AZ). I can't think of any that we lost because of him.
300K bonus for the Saints defeating the Cardinals 500K bonus for the Saints defeating the Vikings 500K bonus if the Saints defeat the Colts 1.3M (in addition to his salary) of incentives for the Saints winning in post season Can the Saints afford to keep him? Is his production worth the price? If paying him next season is at the expense of losing other starters or limiting the ability to sign free agents, do we retain him? I guess time will tell. It's hard to argue against the personnel moves they made the last two seasons, so hopefully they'll get it right. Saintslogo
sure they have. they let him watch Roby and Pierre run back kickoffs and punts correctly -from the bench. let him watch how to run forward while amazingly holding onto the ball and while playing hurt. (PT had broken ribs sunday on that 4th down plunge and on the return that won the game) the only reason bush plays as much as he does --even though its about 15 less plays a game than his rookie season--is because sean payton thought he was going to be the next gale sayers (as did most people). he still cant believe each time he marches that dude out there 10 times a game how wrong he was. neither can I. so he keeps hoping the outcome will be different. as do most fans. its not going to happen. he still sucks as an every down football player. not the type of dude other teammates respect or rally around. you'd at least expect some semblance of that for 12 mill a year. he costs the saints about 1/10th of their entire salary cap. Pierre Thomas makes around $375K. hopefully pete carroll offers bush and leinart a ticket to visit the space needle for the 2010-2011 season. unless he's willing to take about a 10 million dollar cut. his 8 million dollar base should be reduced to about 2 million for a glorified special teams player.
No I didn't miss the part where you were CRITICAL of him. It wasn't a great cut on the punt return. It was a 250lb LB that couldn't change directions on a dime and then a slow punter couldn't catch him. Is Bush fast--yes, but that is all. I'm glad he made the TD, but he made one cut and that was all he did. His blockers and the ineptitude of the Cardinals special teams should be congratulated His vision on the run was so great he ran up the back of his blocker and into the defender. Again, only when he ran into more defenders---laterally--always laterally, did he notice there was no one in front of him. The key word in 2 of the records you are siting is franchise.
Well, we can disagree about whether his cut on the return was great or not. The Cardinals had crappy coverage; I agree. But in my opinion, a return guy usually does something great when he returns a punt 80+ yards against a playoff team. That LB couldn't stop on a dime because MOST people can't stop on a dime. That's what made Reggie's move so good to me. I agree that after that is was easy. You can talk about the key word in two of those records being "franchise" - but it's still the best the Saints have ever had and it's still pretty damn good. Here are some other NFL RECORDS he has to go with that other one: Most receptions for a rookie RB - 88 - No other RB is even close Fastest player to reach 200 receptions in NFL HISTORY. Tied with one other player (WR Boldin, AZ) Most punt returns for TDs in one game - Tied with a number of others with two in one game Highest average per carry in NFL playoff history with a minimum of 5 carries (16.8 per carry against AZ). He's a mixed bag, but he is someone that the other team will always have to worry about. Personally, I think if the Saints want to keep him, they should pay him a lot less and offer $ in incentives and base most of it on averages. If his averages are good, he'll get decent playing time. That way if he's as good as he thinks he is, he will earn his $. Payton has been playing him the right amount of snaps. Now he knows that he will not get the ball regardless of how he runs. And I do feel that he has run the ball better because of it even though he still makes dumb decisions like he did on the punt.
I freely admit I am prejudiced against Reggie Bush. I am prejudiced against any professional athlete getting paid millions that is a coward. His rookie season was his best, partly because we had Deuce running up the middle for good gains and Bush could be used almost exclusively running around the end or catching the ball out of the backfield. He hasn't stayed healthy after his first season I don't believe. I truly believe we are a better team without him, even at a minimal salary. There are better return men, there are better third down backs and they don't have to cost a fortune. Just think about how it must feel to be Pierre Thomas and make so much less than this over hyped ninny. When Bush leaves it will raise the morale of the team IMO. I hope he has the best game of his life in the Superbowl--and then we get rid of this sorry a$$ before next season starts. You forgot that he holds the record for running out of bounds in the least amount of touches too.
I actually agree with most of your post ^. I don't know about the whole morale issue because I think the team morale is great right now. And I don't know if we'd be better, but he's not worth what we're paying him. No doubt, Thomas has been a much better pure RB than Bush. So yeah, it might bug him a little, but he doesn't seem to have that big of an ego to me...which is great and why I love him. I will say this, when Bush came into the league, I never saw so many defenders trying to take an RBs head off. Everyone wants to say they nailed Reggie Bush because of all the hype. So he has a lot more attention put on him than almost all other RBs. He does probably hold the record for running out of bounds as well...but he hasn't been doing that near as much lately. So I credit him for that. I just wanna enjoy the ride while it's happening.
