Devin Bush says chance to play with Bobby Wagner is ‘dream come true’

SEATTLE – When Devin Bush agreed to a contract to play linebacker with the Seahawks on the night of March 16 after four years with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bobby Wagner was still a free agent.

But Bush had heard the rumors, read the speculation and understood that Wagner’s return to Seattle might be in the offing.

He remembers talking that night with his father, Devin Bush Sr., about what it might be like to play with Wagner. Bush Sr. played eight years in the NFL as a safety with the Falcons, Rams and Browns, earning a Super Bowl ring with St. Louis following the 1999 season.

“We were just playing around, saying it was a possibility,” Bush said.

Nine days later it became a reality when Wagner re-signed with the Seahawks, something Bush called “super exciting.”

“Once it happened, it was kind of like a dream come true,” Bush said. “I can say that he’s a potential Hall of Famer and to be able to play alongside of him, I can’t ask for a better situation than that.”

The Seahawks certainly hope it turns out to be as good of a situation as Bush envisions, with the signings of Bush and Wagner serving as centerpieces of their efforts to remake their front seven in the wake of a disappointing defensive season in 2022.

Truth be told, when the Seahawks signed Bush, they weren’t totally sure that Wagner would re-sign.

But they saw Bush as being able to either play the weakside linebacker spot, which became open when Cody Barton signed with Washington, or in the middle for as long as Jordyn Brooks is out as he recovers from an ACL injury suffered Jan. 1.

With Wagner back and Brooks’ return date uncertain, the Seahawks appear to be heading into the season with the plan of having Bush and Wagner serve as their two inside linebackers in their base 3-4 defense – barring taking someone in the draft in a few weeks.

The assumption is that Wagner will return to the middle and Bush will be the weakside backer, essentially taking over for Barton.

Bush, who mostly played middle linebacker with the Steelers and also served as the “green dot” player relaying calls from the sideline, said whatever the team asks is fine with him.

“I haven’t spoken, scheme wise, with anybody,” Bush said. “If I had to take my guess, me and Bobby are going to be next to each other, and I think that’s all that really matters at this point. I feel like with him being such a veteran and me being a veteran myself, we can kind of feed off of each other and I think that we can play in multiple spots.”

And what Bush hopes most happens in Seattle is a revival of a career that began with much optimism in 2019 when he was taken 10th overall by Pittsburgh, which traded the 20th and 52nd picks to move up to get him.

Bush, who was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year at Michigan in 2018, said he had ample talks with the Seahawks before that draft, with the Seahawks at that time possibly hoping to begin preparing for life after Wagner and K.J. Wright.

“I know that they liked me coming out in 2019,” Bush said in a Zoom call with media Thursday. “I got on the phone with coach (Pete) Carroll a couple of times. We talked, and we spoke frequently.”

Seattle, though, had the 21st pick and ultimately no shot at drafting Bush.

Bush made the Steelers’ aggressive move to get him look like it would pay off when he made 109 tackles in 2019, which led all NFL rookies and ranked fourth overall, and also had nine tackles for a loss, which also led all NFL rookies.

But he suffered an ACL injury five games into the following season, and the perception in Pittsburgh is that his career hasn’t been the same since.

He remained as a full-time starter in 2021 and to begin the 2022 season before being benched at the end of the year, with the Steelers deciding not to pick up his fifth-year option after the 2021 season and deciding not to try to re-sign him as a free agent this spring.

Bush said he has no ill feelings toward the Steelers but hopes to prove he’s still the player they thought he was all along, not turning 25 years old until June.

“Obviously, I wouldn’t say it was up to par,” he said of his Steelers career. “But I had my ups and downs. I think I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot about this business, and I learned about what I want out of it. I thank the Steelers for taking a chance on me and I thank them for the four years that I had, but it’s obviously time to move on, go to different things, and learn some more.”

And he thinks he’s finally past the knee injury.

“It was a lot,” he said. “It was my first time getting surgery and my first time missing a season in my whole entire career, even from being 7 years old. It was all new to me. Everything was all new, everything was coming so fast, and everything was moving fast. As of right now, I’m on the other side of my injury. I dealt with it, I’ve been through it, and I’m feeling a lot better. I’m feeling like I have never felt before, honestly. I just can’t wait to get out there and showcase my talent.”

He signed a one-year contract with Seattle worth up to $3.5 million that also serves as something of a “prove-it” deal, both to the Seahawks and the rest of the league.

With Wagner on a one-year contract and turning 33 in June and Brooks entering the final year of his rookie contract with a somewhat uncertain future coming off a significant knee injury of his own, Bush knows he has a chance to make Seattle a long-term home.

“I knew that I had a place that I could come into and compete right away,” he said. “I knew that I had a place that was very historic for defense. It was a place that I also knew liked me early on in the draft process, so we all had something mutual going on and something familiar. I felt like it would be a good chance for me to get outside of my comfort zone and go to Seattle to learn the ways out there and get a chance to play football again.”