Carlos Monarrez

Detroit Free Press

As he prepares to face the New Orleans Saints for the first time since they traded him to the Miami Dolphins three years ago, Detroit Lions running back Reggie Bush said today that he isn't bitter about how things ended.

"It was a mutual decision on their part and our part to seek out the trade," he said. "So there was nothing that unexpected. And I don't have any bitterness toward the team or anybody. It's part of the business. It's the business side of our sport. Sometimes it can be ugly. But at the end of the day, we all sign on the dotted line and we understand how it works."

Bush, who likely will play this weekend (1 p.m. Sunday, Fox) after resting his ankle last weekend against the Minnesota Vikings, said he's trying to tune out all of the external talk about facing his ex-team.

"Well, I mean, yeah, I'm playing against my former team, you know?" he said. "And it was a team that drafted me into the NFL. So I still have a lot of respect for the team and some of the guys that are still there when I was there and (coach) Sean Payton and the city.

"But other than that, I have to mentally separate that from this game. Once the ball is kicked, they're just like any other team we're playing against. I have to be able to compartmentalize that."

Bush tried hard to downplay any lingering animosity from his 2011 trade to the Dolphins for backup safety Jonathan Amaya and a swap of sixth-round picks. He said he still keeps in contact with New Orleans running back Pierre Thomas and director of player development Fred McAfee.

But one person Bush hasn't kept in contact with is Payton.

"No," Bush said. "I mean, I think (we've) sent messages through other people, but not directly."

Bush said he would greet Payton on the field Sunday, but Payton was a proponent for drafting Bush's replacement, Flint native Mark Ingram, in 2011, and that signaled the end of Bush's days with the Saints.

Payton called Bush before the trade with Miami on July 28, 2011. But even three years later, that conversation was still too touchy for Bush to revisit.

"I don't want to get into that," he said. "It really doesn't have any bearing on what's going on. This is about the game, and that was four years ago. I'd kind of like to leave it there and kind of focus on this team where I'm at now and our opportunity to get to 5-2."

At 29 and in his ninth NFL season, Bush said he has learned not to take things personally and that vengeance and acrimony don't equate to better effort and production on the field.

"I'm not going to try to make it more than that, because we still have a job to do," he said. "I don't want to get caught trying to do too much.

"Learning from experiences in the past, when I've tried to do too much, it never really works out the way you really want it do. And then you end up making a few mistakes. For me, I'm going to go into the game with the same mind-set I do every game."

But Bush admitted this isn't quite like any other game. Coach Jim Caldwell named him a team captain this week. "It's not a coincidence at all," he said. And even Bush said that if the game were being played in New Orleans instead of Detroit, it might mean something different.

"Probably, yeah," he said. "If it was in New Orleans then I think it would be a little different, yeah."

The Saints made Bush the No.2 overall draft pick in 2006. 2011. And though Bush's career wasn't quite star-crossed, it also wasn't quite the stuff of superstardom everyone expected after Bush's highlight-reel career at USC. In five years in New Orleans, Bush never made a Pro Bowl or rushed for 1,000 yards and gained more than 1,000 yards from scrimmage only once.

But he helped the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV and he learned about the unforgiving business side of football.

"But when I look back on it," he said, "and the bigger picture, I really appreciate the city of New Orleans for being everything that it was to me."

Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.

Join special writer Sean Merriman for a live blog of the Lions-Saints game Sunday afternoon. And play NFL Pick 'Em here.

