Devin Bush has a new workout buddy. And it’s another Steelers first round pick.
Bush, this week at Steelers minicamp, has spent the early minutes of practice going through footwork drills with second-year running back Najee Harris.
“I kind of just walked over there one day, and just said, ‘what’re you doing,” Bush said, while happily eating an ice cream cone paid for by fellow linebacker TJ Watt following Thursday’s final minicamp practice. “He said, ‘I’m doing a ladder drill.’ And we just started warming up together.”
Bush is the more veteran player, but Harris has taken Bush under his wing during this time. Harris goes through the drills first, and Bush follows, trying to replicate that massively impressive footwork of the 6-foot-3, 244-pound running back.
The drills, according to Bush, center around a soft ladder that is placed on the field. The two move their feet in differing variations, and do the drill while facing forward, sideways, and backwards.
“It gets the feet ready,” Bush said. “It’s good for conditioning, and there’s a correlation between running back and linebacker. With us competing so much, I see that I do similar things that he does, he does similar things that I do…Except going backwards.”
While Bush backpedals a bit more frequently than Harris, the quick, sudden footsteps in all directions are more natural to the running back position.
An improvement of footwork in tight spaces could be a nice boost to Bush’s game, which came under heavy scrutiny in 2021.
Last season, he struggled to regain his form and his confidence following a torn ACL in 2020. He was obviously not the same player as his rookie season, in which his sideline-to-sideline speed was frequently on display.
“I wasn’t happy with my play, of course,” Bush said of 2022. “I wasn’t happy with losing. I went through some things, personally. I felt like it was all a learning process for me.”
Bush believes that this offseason, one in which he had no restrictions and was able to work out on the beach, and on a football field, in a full capacity, will go a long way to letting him play more carefree.
Now, his workouts with Harris seem to be adding a little more to that confidence.
“I plan on doing it throughout (training) camp,” he said. “And into the season, for sure.”