Steelers GM Kevin Colbert On Devin Bush – “He’s Frustrated” Using Last Season As ‘Motivation’ For 2022

[Steeler Nation]

On Monday the Pittsburgh Steelers declined the fifth-year option on linebacker Devin Bush. That will accelerate Bush into becoming a free agent after this season, and potentially him leaving town for a new beginning. If that would happen the Steelers would’ve paid a costly price for a player that severely underwhelmed during his time in Pittsburgh after being the 10th overall pick in 2019.

There are a lot of people that insist Bush didn’t have a very good rookie season, but the stats paint a different picture. He recorded 109 tackles, 2 interceptions, 9 tackles for a loss, 1 touchdown, 1 forced fumble, and received three votes for AFC defensive rookie of the year. He made rookie mistakes, and his coverage ability wasn’t as strong as it was expected to be, but you could see the sideline-to-sideline ability.

It seems that general manager Kevin Colbert believes that there is a Bush that they saw prior to his injury, and one that they say after. Speaking on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Colbert dug into the Bush situation.

Photo AP

To us, it’s two Devin Bushes, prior to that ACL injury Devin was on a real positive track and he was the player we had hoped he would be when we made that trade. Coming out of that ACL last year, he wasn’t quite the same,” Colbert said. “And sometimes, most times it takes a good year to get through that injury, to get your game back to where you left off prior to. In making those business decisions we have to okay, say where is the player currently, where could he be and when we do that, if we don’t exercise the option, we always tell the player, look, we’re not giving up on you, we’re just taking a step back, you take a step back, look and see what happens. If you have a great year, good for you and good for us and then we can make those decisions. But again, I think we’re evaluating two different Devin Bushes, and I know we’re excited to see what he can do in 2023.

The Steelers lucked into a secret weapon that could have a lasting impact on Bush. It’s new linebacker coach Brian Flores. Flores is an absolute stud of a defensive coach and specializes in linebackers. And Flores, like Bush, has been going through his own challenges as he has a lawsuit out against the NFL. If there is anyone that can get Bush, it would be Flores.

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Bush doesn’t talk a lot with the media, or use social media much, so it’s hard to get a read on how he took last season. With no locker room access last season reporters couldn’t corner him to try and find out what was going on in his head as he struggled. But for the first time we’re hearing from Colbert that Bush understands the tape he put out last year, and he wants to use it for motivation.

When Colbert was asked about how Bush took the news of his fifth-year option not being exercised he said Bush had a positive reaction.

I think he understood completely, because he doesn’t feel that he was the same player, and he was frustrated by that during the season. He was frustrated by that, but that was motivation for him coming out into 2022. He’s excited for this year. He understood it. I think he wants to prove that pre-knee-injury Devin is who he really is, and we’re hopeful that happens, and we’re pretty confident it will.

The Steelers have become good at this situation when it comes to turning down fifth year options. And let’s just add that it’s not a solid situation to be declining the fifth-year option on 3 out of your last 4 first round picks that have become eligible. But the Steelers just re-signed Terrell Edmunds after letting him play out his contract after declining his option. Edmunds didn’t have a bad season, but his playmaking ability, or lack thereof, didn’t garner him much attention when he hit the open market. So, the Steelers re-signed him for 2.5 million and saved around 4 million by not picking up his option.

Bush isn’t going to be in the same type of situation as Edmunds, though. He’s either going to come the whole way back and be close to what he was expected to be after his rookie season, or he’s going to be bad like last season. If he does regain form the Steelers can franchise tag him in 2023. If he’s bad they can let him walk or it’s possible he could return on some type of deal like Edmunds if things start coming together for him towards the end of the year. He could get one more prove it contract.

Time will tell on Bush. But it’s nice to hear he’s motivated. That’s something that a lot of Steeler Nation has questioned for the past 8 months.

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Fans were frustrated watching Bush lack luster performance last year