By Sam Hollingsworth
Former first-round draft pick, 2005 Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl XLIII champion Reggie Bush has proven to the Miami Dolphins he is still worth a starting running back job.
After amassing just over 2,000 rushing yards during his five-year tenure in New Orleans, Bush was traded to Miami before the 2011 season began. New Orleans acquired running back Darren Sproles from the San Diego Chargers and drafted a new former Heisman winner, Mark Ingram.
So, in addition to the $16 million cap hit the Saints would have taken with Bush, it was apparent something had to give. (The Saints also kept running backs Chris Ivory and Pierre Thomas.)
Nearly mocking (if not complementing) his team’s overall performance through the first seven games of the season, Bush made the Saints look like geniuses, going without a single rushing touchdown and waiting until Week 7 to break 100 yards on the ground vs. the New York Giants.
But then Bush turned it up.
And so did his team, winning its last four out of five games and surging up in the division.
“I’ve been really proud of what Reggie has done,” Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano told the media Monday. “He’s been making big plays for us. I really think that’s obviously the reason we brought him here.”
Mostly a return-man threat and lethal out-of-the-backfield receiver for the Saints, Bush has become the No. 1-back-type threat Saints coach Sean Payton envision when he used his first pick in New Orleans (2nd overall) to draft Bush in ’06.
Despite showing promise in his first game as a Dolphin, Bush was stale through the next six games until he exploded for five touchdowns in as many games. But it’s not just the scoring Sparano is happy about.
“I mean, he’s getting better at protection, running in between the tackles,” Sparano said. “We ran some hard ball hitting plays yesterday. And I think this guy stuck it up in there and made some hard yards. And then in a couple of cases I thought the best run the guy had yesterday was the one that got called back on our sideline. It wasn’t a whole lot there. We got out on the perimeter and he shook a guy and when we got out there and then all of a sudden turned it into a 25-yard gain.”
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