In Devin Bush, the Steelers get 'a machine' to help lead their defense
RAY FITTIPALDO
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
APR 26, 2019 3:04 PM
Don Brown could not get the words out of his mouth fast enough.
“Don’t worry about it,” the University of Michigan defensive coordinator was saying over the phone Friday morning from Ann Arbor, Mich.
Brown’s quick answer was in response to the question about Devin Bush Jr., the Michigan inside linebacker the Steelers selected with the No. 10 pick in the NFL draft Thursday night.
There is little not to like about Bush’s game. Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh called him “one of the fastest linebackers” he has ever seen. His 4.43 time in the 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine last month sealed his status as a top-10 pick in the draft. He also became the first player to be voted a team captain as a junior under Harbaugh, a feat that is only reinforced when Brown and others talk about Bush’s leadership and football character.
But the question that has always followed Bush is about his size. He stands 5 feet 11 and weighs 234 pounds. The term “undersized” was attached to his name so often throughout the pre-draft process that it might as well have been part of his identity.
“I’m telling you, don’t worry about,” Brown continued. “He will thump you between the tackles. He will run you down sideline to sideline. He’s a tremendous football player. I’m telling you the Steelers are getting a rare find.”
Devin Bush Sr. played in the NFL for eight seasons at almost the exact same size. He was a safety in a different era, when big defensive backs were all the rage. In today’s NFL, the script has flipped. Smaller, faster linebackers are in vogue as coaches try to find players to match up with spread offenses that populate the league.
“I laugh at it,” Devin Sr. said of the talk about his son being small for a linebacker. “It’s foolish. My roommate at Florida State was Derrick Brooks. He was 180 pounds when he got to college, and he’s in the Hall of Fame. Ray Lewis was 215 in college. We listened to the talk. But if you look at the linebackers in the NFL, they’re all that size. If they want to say it, that’s fine. But it’s not something he’s going to care about. It’s only a narrative.”
The Steelers swapped their first-round pick and traded away their second-round pick and a third-round pick next year to get Bush. They did it because he has the athletic profile to excel in the NFL, in addition to elite production and accolades in a major conference.
The Steelers wouldn’t have moved up to get Bush if he didn’t checks those boxes on his resume, but what sold them on Bush was his football character.
“We are equally as fired up about his intangibles,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “He comes from a football family. He’s a football guy. Everyone speaks very highly of him, not only as a player, but as a person.
“His leadership skills are unquestioned. We interviewed a lot of Michigan players through the draft process, and it was unanimous in terms of who their unquestioned leader was. And that was attractive to us as well. The position that he plays is like a defensive quarterback, and I think that’s something that comes very natural to him.”
Before a game at Michigan State in October, Michigan and Michigan State players got into an altercation during pregame warm-ups, when Bush and his teammates became entangled with Spartans players as they joined hands and attempted to walk through the Wolverines on the field.
After the altercation ended, Bush tore up the Michigan State logo at midfield with his cleats. The grounds crew had to repair the field before the game could be played. The incident gained national attention, but privately NFL people loved what Bush did.
“That’s just me,” Bush said Friday at the Steelers’ facility on the South Side. “I was sticking up for my team, and I know my team would have done the same for me.”
No one at Michigan had a problem with it either, including his dad, who followed his son to the Wolverines and works as a defensive analyst for Harbaugh.
“Devin fell in love with the game,” Devin Sr. said. “There’s passion there. He’s competitive. It’s play after play after play. Devin has a really big heart. He loves his teammates. All of that came out in that game. It was a rivalry game. He won’t start it, but he’s going to stand up for his teammates.”
The Steelers have been searching for a player to quarterback their defense since Ryan Shazier suffered a spinal cord injury late in the 2017 season. In addition to Bush’s alpha male qualities, he has the football smarts to excel as a defensive signal caller, too.
Inside linebackers have the responsibility of getting the front seven aligned correctly. They not only must relay the defensive call to their teammates, but they have to quickly process information as the play develops. Some never develop a knack for the coordinated chaos, but Bush thrives in the throes of it.
“Some guys, in their preparation, you’d like to see them have more attention to detail,” Brown said. “This guy is a machine. He’s really on top of his craft. He’s a role model for other guys. He’s always responsible for the game plan. He makes all the checks. The guy just has unbelievable attention to detail.”
Born into the NFL
Devin Bush Sr. was Atlanta’s first-round draft pick (No. 26) overall in 1995. He played in the Super Bowl in consecutive years after the 1998 and 1999 seasons. His final season in Atlanta culminated with an NFC championship and an appearance in Super Bowl XXXIII against the Broncos.
The Falcons lost to the Broncos, but Bush made it back to the Super Bowl the following year after he signed with the St. Louis Rams. This time, he was on the winning side as the Rams beat the Titans, 23-16. His playing career ended two years later with a not-so-memorable playoff loss to the Steelers at Heinz Field.
Bush was not active for the AFC wild-card game, but he watched as the Steelers scored 15 points in the final 3:06 to complete an improbable comeback.
Devin Jr. was 4 when his father retired. It wasn’t long before Devin Sr. signed his son up for football. And it didn’t take very long for his father to realize Devin Jr. would someday follow in his footsteps.
“I watched him play in Little League, and I knew when he was 10 years old,” Devin Sr. said. “I saw his skill set. I recognized his instincts.”
Devin Sr. coached his son from the time he was in Little League all through high school in Broward County, Fla., where they won a state championship together when Devin Jr. was a senior at Flanagan High School.
Devin Sr. had his son play every position when he was growing up so he’d develop into versatile player. He was trained as a cornerback with a specific purpose.
“So he could master playing in space,” his dad said.
On offense, Devin Jr. played running back “so he could learn how to play with the ball in his hands.”
The training paid off by the time he got to Michigan, where he became a two-time All-American and the Big Ten defensive player of the year last fall. Brown, his old coach, calls Bush “a complete player.” Tomlin, his new coach, calls him a player for “all situations.”
It wasn’t always easy being coached by his father. Devin Sr. pushed his son to the limits. He coached him harder than any other player on his team, oftentimes bringing Devin Jr. to a breaking point.
It wasn’t until late in his high school years that Devin finally realized why his dad was so hard on him.
“It was very hard,” Devin Jr. said. “I’m not going to say it was a luxury in the beginning. In my dad’s eyes I probably wasn’t good at all. He pushed me super-hard. Sometimes he was really, really hard with me. I didn’t understand why. Sometimes I felt like I didn’t want to play football anymore. As I got older and as I understood what he was putting me through, he got me ready for moments like this.”
Ray Fittipaldo:
rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
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