The New Orleans Saints have been lucky to have some exceptional talents walk through their doors, and two of the most notable ones from their Super Bowl victory were Drew Brees and Reggie Bush. Brees was a once in a generation type player for a franchise, and Bush was an exceptional offensive talent to counterbalance the offense and give it great versatility.
However, the Saints almost did not get Bush, with the Houston Texans holding the No. 1 overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, they had the opportunity to take him, and both sides met an enormous amount leading up to that day. Ultimately, the Texans went with Mario Williams instead, and Bush fell to the Saints at pick No. 2, and that was history.
Bush recently discussed this process, and how Brees impacted his career heavily and gave him confidence in the Saints to be his long term landing spot, dropping the following information:
“There were a lot of doubts at that time, because of Katrina, and the Saints didn’t have a home stadium at this time period. So, their stadium was completely destroyed, and there was no guarantee as to where they were gonna play their games. So I was like man, I don’t know about going into that situation, ’cause there’s a lot of uncertainty there, more chaos.”
“This is also what partly changed my heart as well, was, after that was announced Drew called me… and he was like, ‘Man great to meet you, great to talk to you, but I wanna let you know, I played with who I think was one of the greatest running backs ever LaDainian Tomlinson. I think you have an opportunity to be just as good or better than him, and I can’t wait to play with you.’ That gave me all the confidence in the world that like… Okay this is the spot for me, this is where I need to go.”
For the purpose of clarity, when stating “after that was announced” he was speaking in regards to the Texans essentially having a deal done with Williams, meaning Bush would fall to pick No. 2. Initially, Bush’s agents wanted him to fall further and play for the New York Jets in a big media market, but Saints head coach Sean Payton refused to play ball. At the end of the day, Brees helped sell Bush on playing for New Orleans anyway.
This type of context provides an immense look into what truly occurs behind the scenes in the NFL draft and landscape altogether. It is no surprise to hear Brees was one of the large selling points for Bush on being content with this new landing spot after being told he was going to Houston for months beforehand.
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