The Evolution of Bush's Role...

The date was April 28th, 2006. We'd just found out that Mario Williams and the Texans had bumped heads and struck a deal, leaving the Saints free to take any other player on the board. For many, this automatically meant to take Reggie Bush; with Deuce McAllister's recovery status from his 2005 injury uncertain, drafting Reggie Bush would at least give us a threat in the running game should his injury problems become recurring.

So we take Bush, and for once in New Orleans, we seemingly did something right on the sports scene. Widely viewed as a big-threat player, wild speculation followed; many had already penned him in as rookie of the year, many said he'd replace Deuce as the starter by the end of training camp, still others thought he'd go deep into the four-digits in yards from scrimmage as well as serving as a threat in the return game.

Training camp hits, following an unsuccessful appeal to the league to wear his franchisioned (I made that word up) #5 (now figure out what it means). Everyone is excited, reports out of camp are that he's looking extremely good at taking handoffs, although his role is still clear as mud. Will he supplant Deuce, or will he be a spell back? August 12th rolls around, and on Bush's second run of the preseason, everyone supposedly sees just how great he will be. His other five runs would net him 15 yards (3 ypc); for the preseason, his other 18 runs would net him 58 yards (3.2 ypc). Despite these numbers, the popular decision is that Bush will perform well in the league, and will run away with the Rookie of the Year award. We got the hyperbole from local, national, and worldwide media. Bush is the next [insert whichever elite RB you'd like], Williams over Bush is Bowie over Jordan, we heard and read it all. More importantly, we believed it all.

Now, nine weeks and eight games into the season, we've seen a mixed bag from our trophy rookie. We've seen 141 total yards, and we've seen -5 rushing yards. However, speaking purely from a production standpoint (I don't care about jerseys sold, tickets sold, or successful decoys right now), it would be foolhardy to deny that his bad games have far outweighed his good ones (remember, production, not presence). We've now evolved (or devolved, depending on your position here) to a stance that it is okay for him to produce poorly, provided the team is winning. This is a far cry from the playmaker we had him tagged to be as recently as August 12th or even September 12th.

I just want to know: What caused this paradigm shift? Is it the fact that we're winning games? If we were, say, 3-5 after today, would we still be essentially apologizing for and even excusing fully his near-moribound play? I'd like for most of the attention of the responses to be directed at the move from "he'll be our biggest playmaker, no question, trade Deuce" to "he's not making plays at all, but he opens up the field for others, so it's okay for him to stink it up."

Just trying to elicit some kind of thought-out discussion about this. It's been bugging me for awhile now. And besides, I need a diversion away from Bears this Bears that 1985 Ditka HOLY HELL THE DOLPHINS WON THE GAME.

Someone read me.