METAIRIE, La. (AP) -Reggie Bush said he couldn’t recall being booed in the Louisiana Superdome before last weekend.
He heard a few during the New Orleans Saints’ season opener against the Detroit Lions on Sunday – a game in which he fumbled two punts, losing one for a turnover, and managed only 14 yards rushing on seven carries.
“It’s part of the game. That’s what happens. You’ve just got to find ways to get better,” Bush said of the boos. “You can’t complain about it because if I don’t like it, I’ve got to do something about it.”
After Saints players went through their normal Monday meetings and video review of the previous day’s game, a 45-27 victory over Detroit, Bush spent time on the Saints’ outdoor practice fields, hauling in footballs fired out of a machine with the height and distance of typical NFL punts.
“When you make mistakes, you’ve got to find ways to correct them and that’s what I’m doing,” said Bush, in his fourth season with the Saints. “It’s not something I normally do on a Monday, but it is now.”
d coach Sean Payton said Bush’s errors may have resulted from missing three preseason games and a number of practices out of caution for his left knee, on which he had surgery last December, and his strained right calf.
“Most players need to get work … to get ready and it’s harder to do that if you have been somewhat limited with the amount of snaps you’ve had,” Payton said. “He’s healthy now and we just have to keep practicing him, but I’m sure that’s part of it. I know that he wouldn’t want to use that as an excuse, but the key is his health. … He has a high standard for himself as well, so I think he’ll respond the right way.”
Bush said he did not think he was rusty, at least not physically.
“Honestly, it’s just a mental error that I made” on the first fumbled punt, Bush said. “I tried to do too much the second time around. It was like a snowballing effect.
“I didn’t feel rusty but it definitely looked like I was rusty,” Bush continued. “I know it wasn’t a matter of rust, just a matter of mental errors and allowing myself to try to do too much.”
Bush’s best play was a 26-yard reception on a play in which he was lined up as a wide receiver.
Mike Bell was New Orleans’ most dominant rusher with 143 yards. This week, Pierre Thomas expects to return from a sprained right knee, adding another running back into the mix.
him in the Saints’ running game, he said, “Of course, 100 percent I feel that way.”
As for how the Saints might sort out who gets the ball when, Bush added, “We’ll see. It’s a competition out here. We’ve just got to find ways to get ourselves on the field.”
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