Malcolm Butler

SalemPats said:

I want to see what BB does with Butler here. Last year, Revis played very tight coverage with little or no help as the safeties were playing a bit tighter to help the run.

Click to expand...

Harmon played 78% of the defensive snaps last night and McCourty 100%. That's a lot of 2-high safety. There was the opportunity to give him plenty of safety help.

We still got D.Bryant, O.Beckham, and D. Thomas on the schedule this year. If we are gonna continue man-to-man we will need to give him some better help from the safety's

The Steelers have a good passing game. I'm not gonna worry yet. The D stopped them when it mattered.

This D isn't going to be as good as last years. Everyone should have realized that.

Kdo5 said:

He certainly got abused by Brown but I wasn't shocked by it. Brown is a stud and a hell of a difficult player to cover.

However he still fought hard and I thought there were plays where he was competitive and was actually in decent position. Not one of my main concerns coming out of tonight.

Click to expand...

While I agree completely with your overall premise, the word "abused" is a slight overstatement to me. Brown's statistics were really good, I know, but, and you stated it, the kid was competitve all game. That's not abusing someone. Abusing someone is what happened to Bradley Fletcher, who is only on the team because he has good size and any team needs someone like that at corner. Maybe he gets better, but who knows. Butler, regardless of Brown's numbers, impressed me enough that I feel we should be encouraged. My one main concern is he is toast when he misses the jam. He does not seem to have the make-up speed to close the gap and make a play on the ball before it gets there. Faster receivers may be a problem. He'll get better though. I know it.

Boomer B said:

We still got D.Bryant, O.Beckham, and D. Thomas on the schedule this year. If we are gonna continue man-to-man we will need to give him some better help from the safety's

Click to expand...

I said the same thing in the game thread last night. It's wise not to leave him on an island, or at least not yet.

@FO_ASchatz: Anyone who complained about Malcolm Butler last night hasn't had the pleasure of watching much Antonio Brown film.

@FO_ASchatz: Not fine: Whoever has to cover Antonio Brown next week, week after, etc. @RealCBG Feels to me like Malcolm, and the Pats, will be just fine.

@DonteStallworth: Despite last night, Malcolm Butler is a really good corner. He was just playing against one of the best players in the NFL in Antonio Brown.

Apologies if this has been posted already.

Coverage aside, M Butler LOVES to hit. Awesome trait in a DB. Fearless. Teammates really dig that. Fires everybody up when lil' guys hit

Click to expand...

https://twitter.com/chatham58/status/642151761944408065

Don't think there's anything wrong with saying Brown took Malcolm to school last night. I'm sure Malcolm feels that way and it motivates/pisses him off. That's one of my favorite things about him, he seems to have the same attitude/competitiveness as TB and JE

manxman2601 said:

Harmon's INT was in part a result of Fletcher's coverage.

Click to expand...

If you see the ply again it was just a bad pass by Ben forcing it...

thecore762 said:

If you see the ply again it was just a bad pass by Ben forcing it...

Click to expand...

Underthrowing it, too

thecore762 said:

If you see the ply again it was just a bad pass by Ben forcing it...

Click to expand...

Deus Irae said:

Underthrowing it, too

Click to expand...

Yes and yes but Fletcher also got his body between the receiver and the ball and forced him away whilst turning his head at the very last moment so that he wouldn't get flagged.

patsinthesnow said:

Or Revis giving up a 40 yard TD to Jordy?

Click to expand...

cmon. According to Revis he passed Jordy to safety, so why u wanna put blame on him.
Boy i was pissed about that Revis statement

Deus Irae said:

The discussion was about Butler last night. Comparing it to a different team's player last year, given the specific context, was stupid.



He got smoked. It happens. As I noted, it was only his second start, it was against one of the very best in the game and he kept fighting. I called it a good sign that he remained competitive, yet y'all still get all stiff-necked over nothing.

Some of you people really need to relax. We're talking about a guy who had his 2nd NFL start and got beaten by the guy who led the NFL in catches last year. It's not a shameful thing that he got lit up. The inability to stop the run, and the inability to cover DHB were much more disconcerting than Butler's getting beat.

Click to expand...

We will disagree on rating his performance as "smoked", however, I think your general sentiment is fair.

Boomer B said:

We still got D.Bryant, O.Beckham, and D. Thomas on the schedule this year. If we are gonna continue man-to-man we will need to give him some better help from the safety's

Click to expand...

And what better way to get Butler ready for those 3 beasts than to have him chase Brown around all night. BB knows what he is doing. Plus, the fact is that the entire D held PIT to 14 points through 99% of the game (I'm not even counting that last TD because the Pats were playing against the clock not PIT).

nabwong said:

I thought the DBs played well in general. The coverage by the LBs were bad though. Also glad not to see Logan Ryan too much. Butler bit too hard on some plays. But that is just experience.

Click to expand...

Good point. I was disappointed in the LB play though they had a few moments. But that is a general comment not a rating of each individual LB's performance.

Have to mention the DL too. Insufficient push too often -- beaten in the trenches frequently. The one positive to note is they had some stout short distance moments.

With that said I hate to impugn even the worst performances after week 1. About 13 months ago the Patriots looked close to the worst team in the league with putrid performances in many phases. Yet by December they were close to firing on all cylinders. So given last year/the previous years (historical trend in general), it is important to not jump to conclusions about the BB Patriots in the first half of the season. The first half of the season is the time they get the machine running as well as it is able. At that point what "we" are will be revealed with far better accuracy. Of course not getting into too deep a hole in the L column in the first half is kinda important . Last year it got uncomfortably close. But the historical data also suggests BB can maintain a competitive amount of wins or better as long as he has Brady and the ability to often put together superior game plans.
Oh yeah, almost forgot the other critical component, BB needs to roll up his sleeves and put extra elbow grease into his systemic cheating to gain a competitive advantage. It simply is not going to get it done making the other team listen to the Patriots radio broadcast. Tomlin and others should be forced to listen to slim whitman or a barbershop quartet on crank. (sorry I couldn't help myself).

FWIW Sherman was routinely abused the majority of his rookie year until he got comfortable with the speed/tempo of the pro game and gained experience.

Not saying Butler is his second coming but he needs more seasoning and remains a work in progress. Be that as it may I am very optimistic regarding his trajectory

Butler has the physical part of the game as a natural ability ...
But let's give him some time to develop the mental aspects of the position.
I well remember all who called for Asante Samuels head here in the forum.
High round draft picks have the advantage of high level college competition ... not the Malcolm Butlers.

We badly needed to pressure Ben last night. Butler is playing tight but if receivers have 4-5 seconds to run around, it's gonna be difficult.

Our front 4 was pretty much neutralized on passing downs. Would have liked some blitzes from Hightower or Collins but we didn't do that in the second half. Chandler was invisible.

sevengables_2207 said:

FWIW Sherman was routinely abused the majority of his rookie year until he got comfortable with the speed/tempo of the pro game and gained experience.

Not saying Butler is his second coming but he needs more seasoning and remains a work in progress. Be that as it may I am very optimistic regarding his trajectory

Click to expand...

That is exactly it. A big part of becoming a consummate pro at this level is watching tape and studying the game, to learn to identify tell and tendency of the receiver in front of him as well as the offense. Butler has just barely started on this. The 2nd time around, he'll pick up on more tell.

And at some point, eventually, Butler will have his bag of tricks and will be more familiar with the tendencies and the patterns of the offenses that he will face, and easily identify what will come out of the various fronts he'll see. The game will start to slow down for him.

He is the defensive version of JE, a lot of scrappiness, very competitive. We can certainly see where he got the nickname "strap."