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.
Statistical production on the Steelers
While base stats aren’t everything and can often be misleading, they do at least tell a story between Bush and Edmunds. Despite playing two different positions, both players are comparable in terms of their style of play. Both are hyper-athletes that play closer to the line of scrimmage. Both should record quite a few tackles in any given season and should be counted on to be at least proficient in zone defense to cover their zone.
Though Edmunds has been in the league for an additional season, his stats have far outproduced Bush’s so far. To be fair, Bush did miss a large portion of the season last year due to an injury, but he hasn’t been able to pick up the pace that he left at. Edmunds has out tackled Bush so far, and it hasn’t really been that close.
The really damaging stat to look at has been both of their coverage ability. While a safety like Edmunds should be expected to be more adept than an off-ball linebacker in coverage, Bush was expected to be a good coverage linebacker given his athletic ability. He has fallen flat there so far and has been horrible there this season giving up a quarterback rating of 119.2 when targeted. Edmunds isn’t some sort of coverage guru by any means, but he has done far better in that role, only allowing a quarterback rating of 82.7 when targeted.
Edmunds has shown more development
No draft pick is ever a complete player from the moment they are drafted. An average or even bad rookie season will quickly be erased from developments and steps forward. One just has to think about Peyton Manning, as a horrible rookie year quickly gave way to a Hall of Fame career. For the two Steelers in question here, only one of them has truly developed.
Despite a relatively lackluster first two years in the league, Edmunds has made some strides over the past two seasons. Again, he is far from an elite player, but he has developed into the player that most expected him to be after he was drafted. Had Edmunds been drafted where most expected him to go (in the mid-late second round) most would see Edmunds as a good draft pick.
Bush, meanwhile, had an average rookie season, a strong start to his second year, but has fallen flat in his third season. Instead of developing and progressing, he has regressed and has become a liability on the field. While neither player has become a premier starter, Edmunds has actually taken regular steps forward to achieve his draft potential.
Bush, meanwhile, has failed to capture any of the hope he had in the pre-draft process and has disappointed. Edmunds has actually developed, Bush hasn’t.
Draft capital Steelers invested
Even if Bush ends up becoming an average player (like Edmunds has become), the Steelers invested significantly more resources in landing Bush than they did in Edmunds. Edmunds was taken late in the first round with no move up or down to land him. Bush required a rare first-round trade-up, as the Steelers moved into the top ten of the draft in exchange for the team’s second-round pick that year and a third in the following draft.
Now, had Bush lived up to the expectations he had when we was drafted, that second and third-round pick wouldn’t have amounted to much, but as it stands right now it seems like a tough deal. For starters, the Steelers could have taken players that have performed better at that number ten spot such as Brian Burns. Had the team wanted to save that draft capital though, they could have just stayed put at pick twenty.
Darnell Savage and Montez Sweat have both become quality starters for their respective teams. This would have allowed the Steelers to keep their additional draft picks. Instead, the team got a below-average player and gave up a lot to get him. You can make the argument that Edmunds wasn’t worth a first-round pick, but Bush was the far higher investment, and his play has been worse than Edmunds overall. The overall investment makes Edmunds the better draft pick from a value perspective.
While neither Bush nor Edmunds’s story is completely told yet, as it stands right now Edmunds is the better overall draft pick. Bush has regressed instead of developing and cost significantly more to draft. Edmunds has developed into an average starter at this point and while not a great pick, has easily become the better overall value than Bush has.