Next up for the Pittsburgh Steelers is their annual mandatory minicamp and that means three more practices for rookie inside linebacker Devin Bush, the team’s first-round draft pick this year, to participate in before training camp gets underway in late July. On Thursday, Bush was asked by Aditi Kinkhabwala of the NFL Network what his goals are for next week’s minicamp.
Man, just learn as much as I can,” Bush said. “Soak up all the knowledge and, you know, keep doing as I’m doing and learn my plays and move forward.”
After a seemingly strong showing by Bush in the Steelers rookie minicamp, some of the team’s players and coaches indicated during various interviews during the three weeks of OTA practices that the rookie linebacker out of Michigan needs to be more vocal in the middle of the defense when it comes to him making calls. On Thursday, Bush was asked if the reports of being too quiet once OTAs got underway are true.
“Just feeling my way in, you know, just seeing how they work and getting acclimated to everything,” Bush told Kinkhabwala. “But, you know, as you get more repetitions, as you get out there more, you know, you start opening up more.”
Bush being a bit too quiet at this stage of the offseason is somewhat understandable as it will indeed take him some time to adjust to his new surroundings, teammates and defense. Once he gets to training camp in Latrobe, however, I bet he becomes a lot more vocal as he should have a fairly strong grasp of what he’s doing and what’s expected of him by then.
Outside of him not being vocal enough, the rest of the progress reports concerning Bush from Steelers players and coaches have been very favorable ones with most of those including acknowledgement of his speed and overall athleticism. That’s definitely exciting to hear so far about him and I’m sure we’ll hear similar references the remainder of the summer.
Overall, Bush seems to have settled in well with the Steelers and seems to be just as impressed with the organization as they are with him.
“Very family oriented. you know, they love their players, Bush told Kinkhabwala. “They love their guys and everybody in the building is rooting for you and they want the best out of you and the best for you.”
The Steelers 2019 mandatory minicamp will get underway on Tuesday at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex in Pittsburgh.
