Reggie Bush: Former Buffalo Bills’ Coach Rex Ryan “Too Loose”
By Ryan Brennan
Buffalo Bills’ fans haven’t heard from Reggie Bush in a while. Last week, he spoke out about his former head coach Rex Ryan.
Reggie Bush signed a one-year contract with the Buffalo Bills back in August — August 1st to be exact — and ever since then, he has been viewed as a waste of space. Sure, the Bills weren’t really expecting much from him, but the team definitely expected some kind of production.
Noting that he joined the No. 1 rushing attack in the NFL, it’s extremely odd to see a former Heisman Trophy winner finish the season with negative yards. In case you don’t believe me, Reggie Bush did in fact finish the season with a total of -3 rushing yards — despite appearing in 13 games.
In his 12 rushing attempts, he did manage a run of 5 yards and one TD, but also fumbled and of course failed to reach positive yardage on the season.
It was far from a successful season for the running back who has faced a lot of criticism this season. It kind of goes along with how the Buffalo Bills‘ season went as a whole. After Week 15 of the regular season, which ended in a 34-31 overtime loss to the Dolphins, the Bills fired their head coach Rex Ryan as well as his twin brother Rob Ryan.
The firing started a series of changes for the team, which lead to a completely new coaching staff and uncertainty across Buffalo’s roster.
Rex Ryan received a lot of criticism for his time in Buffalo, which was seen as a massive failure. Many players have spoken out about what went wrong under Rex Ryan, although some have came to his defense.
Related Story: What Happened to Reggie Bush This Season?
About a week ago, Reggie Bush was featured on Colin Cowherd’s radio show and was asked about the whole Rex situation.
First, Colin asked Bush if he thinks Rex and his “funny guy” mentality will ever work for an NFL team.
"“I don’t think you’re being unfair, no. I think you definitely could be spot on. It’s not to say that that can’t work for a football team. I think it just didn’t work for our team. Because when he was in New York, it worked,” Reggie Bush said."
Cowherd also asked Bush if he thought there was ever a time that Rex should’ve straightened his act up.
"“Yeah, there were times when we just lacked discipline on the football field during games,” Reggie Bush said. “It showed up. There’s times where during practices, you usually can tell how your team is going to play based on how you prepare, right? I feel like there were a few times where maybe we weren’t as focused. And it’s not all on the head coach, because collectively there’s a lot of other coaches there that have to do their job as well. I feel like there were times where it was a little bit too loose and we could have been a little bit more disciplined in this area or that area. Again, that’s not to say that it can’t work, it just didn’t work for our team.”"
Reggie Bush is set to become a free agent this offseason and it is unclear whether or not the Buffalo Bills plan on bringing him back. With Mike Gillislee a restricted free agent and the rest of the Bills’ running backs not proven yet, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep him in the locker room and actually give him some time to prove what he’s got.
He didn’t receive that this season, with just 12 attempts all year.
In his 10 seasons in the NFL, Bush has totaled 5,490 yards, 36 touchdowns and 16 lost fumbles in 1,286 rushing attempts (134 games). He has a 4.3 yards per carry average and has also added 3,598 yards and 18 touchdowns receiving.
His rushing stats would look a teeny bit better if he hadn’t joined the Buffalo Bills this season, which is funny to think about.
You can watch the full interview with Colin Cowherd here:
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