One of the biggest NFL draft busts for the Pittsburgh Steelers under previous general manager Kevin Colbert is the pick of linebacker Devin Bush. The Steelers traded up from the No. 20 pick to No. 10 in the 2019 NFL draft. Bush went through four tumultuous seasons with Pittsburgh before leaving for the Seattle Seahawks in free agency this offseason.
But what went wrong? Well, former Steelers linebacker Vince Williams was on the Steelers Sanctuary Podcast and he offered some insight into Bush and why he believes things didn’t pan out.
“I think Devin is a mystery to me,” Bush said. “I’ve seen people say that Devin don’t like football, but he really loves football. That was evident in his rookie year. He was having a tremendous amount of upside. I think that the knee injury did play a role in his development and how far he fell behind. I think he was also a very young guy, like a 20-year-old in the NFL is a difficult thing to handle.”
Williams and Bush were teammates for two seasons. There’s no denying the knee injury Bush suffered has had a significant impact on his development. Losing an entire year so early when you are still learning the position is huge.
Having said that, when Bush returned, you could tell his confidence was impacted as well. If you want to say he didn’t love football, that might be fair but he didn’t play with confidence once he recovered and that falls on him either way.
Hopefully Bush can salvage what should have been a stellar career and regain the confidence he played with as a rookie.
