Reggie Bush Preemptively Refuses To Sign With Jets

LOS ANGELES--USC’s Reggie Bush, the nation’s leading Heisman candidate, preemptively refused to sign with the New York Jets this week, even though the draft is months away and there’s no guarantee the Jets would even have the number one pick. Bush said he was making the announcement “out of an abundance of caution.”

“I know I have a chance to be the top pick and the Jets have a chance of having that pick,” he said, “so I just wanted to nip this thing in the bud so it won’t have to get messy. I’m not signing with the Jets. I’m sorry. It’s nothing personal against the city of New York, it’s just that my agent has advised me that it’s not the right fit. Oops…I’m not even supposed to have an agent yet. You didn’t hear that.”

Bush said he also consulted his family and prayed to God about his decision. Everyone, including God, advised him against going to New York.

“I pondered this for a long time. It took a lot of soul searching,” he said. “I didn’t come to this decision lightly. I’m just doing what’s best for me and my family. The Jets have been horrible for a long time. There’s no reason to think that’s ever going to change. And don’t give me that crap about how exciting it is to play in New York. Look at Curtis Martin. Does he look excited to you? Even Herm Edwards wants to leave and go to Kansas City. I can’t imagine a place being so bad that you’d want to leave there to go to Kansas City.”

The Jets are one of a handful of teams that covet Bush and have a legitimate shot of getting him. With Curtis Martin on the downside of his career, the versatile Bush would be a perfect fit for the team and a godsend for quarterback Chad Pennington, who hopes to be healthy again in 2006. Still, despite Bush’s preemptive refusal, the Jets haven’t ruled out selecting him in the draft.

“We’ll certainly take that into consideration when we are drafting,” said GM Terry Bradway. “However, we could still draft him if we felt it would benefit us somehow. We may be able to work out a trade with some other team. Frankly, I’m a little insulted that he would be so adamantly against coming here. This is New York. The Big Apple. The Big Stage. If you do well here you will have the run of this town. Just look at A-Rod. OK, bad example.”

Bush’s announcement is reminiscent of the one Eli Manning made prior to being selected by the San Diego Chargers. That move sparked a nationwide controversy, but in the end, both sides got what they wanted. However, this is the first time that a player has ever spurned a team in advance.

“It’s pretty embarrassing to have a kid refuse to sign with you when you haven’t even attempted to sign him yet,” Bradway continued. “But that’s the way it is these days. We're down in the dumps right now. A lot of bad things have happened to us. I just thank God that we have Vinny Testaverde to guide us through these rough waters. He's a real calming influence--not just for us, but for the entire division.”

Chad Pennington weighed in on the matter with a call to WFAN sports radio, saying he plans to call Bush himself and ask him to reconsider.

“I think Reggie has a really distorted view of the New York Jets,” Pennington said. “The teams is not that bad. We’re actually in pretty good shape. I mean, if you look past the fact that our head coach is probably going to leave, and that I am injury prone, and that our defense is weary and exhausted from carrying us all year, and we haven’t been successful in, like, a million years, and that the traffic in New York is hell, and that the media is totally insane...if you can look past that, well, you're a better man than I am. ”

Bush, however, has already made up his mind. When told of Pennington’s plan to get in touch with him, he advised him not to bother.

“Dude, don’t call me. Seriously, it’s not going to help,” he said. “I’m well aware of what’s going on with the team. I wish them luck. I harbor no ill will towards the Jest. I’m just not going to play there. If I were the Jets I would select my quarterback, Matt Leinart. He’s really good. What’s more, he’s not terribly bright and will probably go with the first team that picks him.”