MIAMI — Not long after checking into the Saints’ hotel Monday, Reggie Bush stepped into the elevator when he was immediately recognized.
Sort of.
A young woman perked up upon seeing Bush.
“She goes to me, ‘Hey, you’re Kim Kardashian’s boyfriend!’ ” Bush recounted yesterday.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s one way to know me.’ It’s kind of funny, some people, they don’t even know I play football, they know me as her boyfriend.”
Bush prefaces much of what he says with “It’s kind of funny,” but in this case is it really amusing at all that, four years into his NFL career, the Saints running back in many ways is known more for what he is off the field than what he’s done on it?
In five days, Bush will step onto the lush grass at Sun Life Stadium as perhaps the most gifted athlete in Super Bowl XLIV, and a scenario certainly can be conjured up that he turns in an MVP performance and leads the Saints to an upset victory over the Colts.
Given his track record, a more likely scenario is Bush gets limited carries running the ball, gets thrown to more than a handful of times and tries and fails to break free on a few punt returns.
Bush is a star who usually doesn’t play like one, a major threat who often is neutralized. He served up a reminder of his great potential a few weeks ago in an NFC divisional playoff rout of the Cardinals, scoring on a dynamic 46-yard run and later on an 83-yard punt return, plays that hearkened back to his record-breaking days with the USC Trojans.
The next week, though, Bush in the NFC Championship Game did little, scoring a touchdown on an acrobatic body-twist but also muffing a punt to give the ball to the Vikings on the New Orleans 10-yard line.
In coach Sean Payton’s freewheeling system, he’s a valuable component. But he is supposed to be so much more than that.
“When it’s all said and done, I want to be known as one of the greatest players to ever play this game,” Bush said. “I want to be better than Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders, Chad Johnson. I want to be the best to have played multiple positions.”
What the world sees is a good-looking 24-year-old with all the trappings of success and fame. He was the second-overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft — favorably compared by real NFL thinkers as the second coming of Gale Sayers — and the overwhelming consensus was that the Texans screwed up by taking defensive end Mario Williams with the first pick, allowing the gleeful Saints to sit at No. 2 and take Bush.
A poll of the league’s general managers today would reveal a much different opinion as to the more coveted player.
Bush has a great smile, though, and he’s romantically involved with Kardashian, the vivacious reality-TV star. It’s no surprise that during the annual free-for-all that is Super Bowl Media Day, Bush was inundated with questions about what he calls his “high-profile relationship.”
Bush admits his career “hasn’t lived up to the expectations I set for myself.” He said he’s cut back on much of his off-field endeavors in an effort to become the player he believes he eventually will be.
What about those rumors that if the Saints win the Super Bowl Bush will propose to Kardashian?
Nope.
“I think it would be a little backwards if I was getting a ring from her,” Bush said. “I’d rather get the ring from Roger Goodell.”