With Bush struggling for the Steelers, he has fallen below Edmunds in terms of the team’s disappointing draft picks in recent years.
Much has been said about Terrell Edmunds as a Steelers first-round pick. Most were against the pick and saw it as a reach initially, and now he has that stigma attached that he is a draft bust.
However, with Devin Bush’s recent struggles, one has to put him below Edmunds in terms of who was a better first-round pick. Here are four reasons that Bush is officially a worse pick than Edmunds:
Steelers expectations
Now, expectations aren’t everything in the NFL as actual gameplay will outlive any sort of initial expectation for a player. With that said, Bush and Edmunds entered the league with vastly different expectations as players. Both were uber athletes in college, but Bush was the far more accomplished player entering the league. He was known for his sideline-to-sideline ability as a defender and aggressiveness in the run game.
Edmunds, while athletic, was far from a finished project entering the league. There was some intrigue with him as an in-the-box safety, but his coverage skills were mediocre at best. Most saw him as a second-day pick that could develop into a decent box safety. Compare that to Bush, who was expected to become a top off-ball linebacker, and the two were seen as different prospects.
To this point though, Edmunds has reached the expectations that were placed on him while Bush has fallen well short. Is Edmunds a superstar? No, but he is a serviceable box safety that has his deficiencies in coverage. Bush has regressed to a point where he is a liability on the defense. At this point, Edmunds has actually reached the potential that most saw when the Steelers drafted him.