One of the stories that seems to be floating around today is about the decreased role of Reggie Bush in the Saints offense.

Bush is averaging 10.5 offensive touches a game,  by far the lowest in his four seasons.

I’m not sure what the actual purpose of the story is.  It is tough to be critical of the approach considering the team’s record. If it is simply meant to be an FYI type story, I can’t think of any other response besides ‘well duh’.’ Reggie Bush was never going to be the type of back in the NFL that he was at USC. The talent pool in the college ranks is much more deleted than it is at the pro level. As a result, it is much tougher to isolate and take advantage of the bad players.

I look at Reggie Bush a bit like the Dolphins ‘Wildcat’ offense. It is a nice thing to have. It forces teams to prepare for something extra and at times it is an effective weapon. However, if the Dolphins just ran the Wildcat and nothing else it wouldn’t work. Teams would eventually figure out to put their safeties in the box and that would be that (well maybe not the Colts but that is for a different post). The same is true for Reggie, though certainly to a lesser extent. He is something extra that teams have to plan for and at times he is pretty effective, but if it were Reggie Bush all the time the Saints would struggle.

I don’t doubt that there are probably a lot more plays involving Bush that Sean Payton has yet to show us.  If the Saints weren’t as efficient on offense as they are, I would be willing to bet we would see a lot more of them. Again, I think you can draw from the Wildcat offense and the Dolphins use of it. If the Dolphins were more successful on offense in traditional sets, like the Saints, than you would probably see a lot less of their Wildcat offense.

Anyway, what do you think? Would the Saints offense be better with more Reggie?