One giant step for the offense

This story appears in the Nov. 16 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Reggie Bush just revealed the secret to success in the NFL. And we nearly missed it.

To be fair, it's easy to get distracted around the Saints these days, especially in their frenetic locker room. A few feet away from Bush, right tackle Jon Stinchcomb crushes Pearl Jam's "Even Flow" on Guitar Hero III. Drew Brees just raced through on his way to a meeting. Defensive players mill around in Spinal Tap-inspired T-shirts that read "Smell Greatness." Then there's Bush, dressed in a yellow towel and shower flip-flops, his words of wisdom garbled behind half a Sonic double cheeseburger.

Luckily his secret doesn't require speech. To communicate it, Bush just gets in a linebacker's ready stance and takes one step forward. "Mum mep," he says. [One step.] "Mat's mip." [That's it.] Forget the millions of dollars spent on players and the thousands of man-hours devoted to film study, training and practice. Turns out, the key to the Saints' record-breaking offense comes down to simple physics: Through misdirection, deception and play-calling balance, the Saints routinely force linebackers to take one false step, throwing the entire defense off-balance. "It's all a battle for that first step," says Bush. "When you control that, you can do whatever you want."

To read why the Saints are so good at exploiting opposing defenses, you must be an ESPN Insider.

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David Fleming | email

ESPN The Magazine

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• Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine FlemFile columnist for ESPN.com.
• Has written more than 30 cover stories for SI and ESPN.
• Author of "Noah's Rainbow" (a father's memoir) and "Breaker Boys" (stolen 1925 NFL title).