As a football player, there’s no mystery to what Reggie Bush can do.
The nine-year NFL veteran, now 30, has been a dynamic running back and kick returner. The former USC star can produce highlight-reel plays as a ballcarrier, receiver and returner. He’s averaged 4.3 yards per carry and, three out of the past four years, produced more than 1,278 yards from scrimmage.
In the first post-Frank Gore season of 2015, Bush will be part of a new-look backfield that also includes Carlos Hyde, Australian rookie Jarryd Hayne and rookie Mike Davis. When he signed with the 49ers in March, Bush -- coming off an injury-marred 2014 season in Detroit -- tweeted that, “The best is yet to come.”
But 49ers fans will have to take his word for it.
As the Niners prepare for their opening game Monday night vs. the Minnesota Vikings, Bush is a mystery to those outside the team. He played in just one preseason game, had just one carry, no receptions and one punt return for 4 yards. While newcomers such as Hayne, DeAndrew White and Davis were proving on the field what they could bring to this team, Bush was held out. Head coach Jim Tomsula and offensive coordinator Geep Chryst saw no reason to expose Bush to injury.
But reports from training camp were encouraging. Bush is likely to be used as a multipurpose threat – and especially as a receiver out of the backfield – in an offense that largely deleted swing passes and screens from its playbook in recent seasons. Quarterback Colin Kaepernick and Bush have spent a lot of time in training camp connecting on short routes.
“I’ve had quite a bit of work with Reggie,” Kaepernick told the media, “so we had a pretty good feel for each other, as far as how he was going to run routes, his body language, things like that.
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“But it’s great to have him on the field. I think everyone kind of saw (in practices) the effects he can have on a defense and the things he opens up for us as an offense when’s he’s on the field.”
Yet Tomsula and Chryst haven’t been talkative lately about how big a role Bush will play in the offense or on special teams. Tomsula, when asked this week who will return kickoffs and punts, was evasive. And fans won’t know if Bush will be a significant part of the running game on first and second downs, or a change-of-pace, third-down back.
Tomsula, however, was clear when the 49ers signed him this spring, that he believes Bush can be a key piece of a revamped offense.
“Reggie can be an every-down back. He’s done that in the NFL,” Tomsula said.
On Monday night, 49ers fans finally will get to see what he can do.
