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Malcolm Butler


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I hear you. It's not on Butler, either. With the Patriots wanting to use a heavy man scheme, this is the year that Butler should be easing into things as the CB2, not getting forced as the CB1. BB's lousy offseason CB FA work is forcing this. Butler as a CB1 this year has been forced into the deep end of the pool while he's still at the dog paddle stage.

- Cue "We shall overcome", and hope it's true. :)
Given the players who were available, how do you propose the Patriots addressed CB? The Patriots either had to warp their salary structure to accommodate an elite talent or grossly overpay for marginal talents in a barren market.

Sure, it would be great to have exceptional talents at every level but sometimes, market conditions and your ability to do business simply don't allow it.
 
Typical deus. Every bad play by the CBs this year will be magnified by him because in his opinion BB the GM screwed up once again by being cheap and not given 3o year old Revis a 5 year 70m+ dollar deal which would have more than likely jeopardized guys that need to be extended in the next year or two.

Keeping Browner at a $5.5m cap hit was not worth it. They asked him to take a pay cut and he said no.


But here is a list of the others CBs that were out there and the deals they got

Byron Maxwell 6 year/$63m
Chris Culliver 4 year/$32m
Antonio Cromartie 4 year/$32m
Buster Skrine 4 year/$25m
Davon House 4 year/$25m
Tramon Williams 3 year/$21m
Cary Williams 3 years/$18m
Perish Cox 3 years/$15m

None of those were happening with the deal they got.

Now looking at the guys that got minimal 1 year deals that might have been worth a flier.

Charles Tillman 1 year/$2m
Patrick Robinson 1 year/$2m

And Reshean Mathis was never leaving Detroit, so he wasn't an option.


But ya real terrible job by BB by not overpaying any of those 8 guys that got multi year deals. /sarcasm.
 
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Is rashean mathis any good this year?
 
I hope our 3rd down defense's much better against the fish.
 
Probably not much, Fitz isn't a huge upgrade by any means. If anything might change the dynamic there, it's the addition of Marshall and the emergence of Ivory making Decker less of a point of emphasis for the Jets' offense. But Ivory wasn't healthy on Sunday, so even that isn't really a factor.

All in all, I think there's just no way around the conclusion that Butler looked really bad on Sunday. I think it just exemplifies the fact that we need to be capable of having a measured, reasonable perception of who he is as a player. He isn't as good as people were claiming a week ago, and he isn't as bad as people are overreacting an suggesting now. At this moment, he's an adequate CB1 or a very good CB2, and he has the potential to develop into more. The guy's a first-year starter, which means he was going to have some rough games. Uneven production is to be expected, and the upside of not getting too high on a player based on a small sample size is you don't have to overcorrect and forecast terrible things when he inevitably has a bad game or two. He's nowhere near as good as Revis was last year, but to ever think that he might be was insane in the first place so that shouldn't surprise any reasonable person.

The only long-term takeaway from Sunday that I'd find even mildly concerning is that this is one of the first itmes we've asked Butler to match up against a big WR, and the results were not encouraging. Maybe it's just a blip, maybe not. But I'll be watching very eagerly to see how he holds up against Demaryius and Hopkins (who plays bigger than his size) later this season. I like his ability to stay with guys who win on shiftiness--the Browns, Beckhams, Landrys, Sanders, Edelmans, etc. of the world--and luckily most of the top WRs we see for the rest of the season are guys like that.

Damn good write up B-FTW.
Some things I'd add in: Did anyone worth a serious response suggest Butler was reasonably comparative to Revis? Any talk of that was largely the sports talk radio circuit and/or posters who participate more at the emotion of the moment level (versus us mentally deranged who actually spend time diving into/thinking about the fundamentals and equations :))

IMHO Butler's overall game is good enough to solidly put him in the top 32 CBs (aka '#1 CB' position). That belief is based on three observations:
Competition comparison - looking at a list of starting CBs, the 16th/mean #1 CB in the league definitely doesn't impress upon me 'avoid throwing at that guy'. Yards/throws are there (I suppose this is why the top tier CBs make the extreme money)

Overall performance: he has been fairly solid against varying receivers. He specifically has not been solid against the more noted receivers. I think the overall elevates him into the #1 CB category sufficiently.

Coverage overall: Butler seems to be relatively solid at staying with his man when he is straight up man to man. The guy has a good motor that turns on a dime and he is using to stay around frequently. That in itself is important step 1. Whether the inability to be 1 step closer when needed and/or make the actual play against the more noted receivers is due to bad technique or lack of ability is ???. I hope it is technique that will improve as the season goes on.

One other item that is important to point out is the difference in statistical performance is not far from small. For instance against the Jets, if he breaks up one more pass that forces a fourth down, his overall performance would look quite a bit better. Make that one stop by way of an Int or he has two good coverage data points that force 4th downs and Butler is much further 'up'. Of course one or two plays is not exactly a walk in the park to make, however, I'll feel more at ease our #1 CB spot is manned satisfactorily if he can. We will see what we see...
 
Sometimes it is forgotten that for this UDFA this was his 7th NFL Start, there will be bumps in the road..
 
I think most realized we'd have to prop up the CB position this year. We have improved the pass rush, especially when healthy again. We have a very good group of safeties.

I disagree with the idea that you can just spend enough in free agents to get great corners. Teams with great corners keep them. You can always spend a lot of money and occasionally get lucky with a malcontent with off field problems like talib.

I'm happy to let the jets destroy their cap for years and very happy we have a good corner who's going to get better in Butler and the money to resign our other defensive players.

We'll just have to keep QBs uncomfortable [Fitz being allowed to run around was the big problem, not CB play]. We pinched the run, but could have been better rushing the passer.

Players we wanted to get rid of, like Chung, are helping too.

Every off season the solution, to some, is throwing as much money around as possible, but I think it rarely works, and obviously leaves you with bigger wholes than the curren CB situation, which just requires scheming and patience to allow our excellent LBs and safeties and improved rush to dictate the game.
 
I love how bb is going about our CB situation and team in general. He is building homegrown talent now more so than bringing in free agents. This builds loyalty so they wont bolt like Revis to his hometeam and another scenario is they just suck when they come in and we are stuck with a contract for years. Sometimes it works but its less common for a free agent to immediately excell here. We are just beginning to see Amendola perform to his contract which began last playoffs. There aren't too many mosses or welkers coming in. I love seeing the progression of the players on our team, it's like a blooming flower and it's just beautiful to see; tom, Edelman, Collins, ht, gronk ... And now butler and others. Mccourty for example took just a little less to be a pat again. That's loyalty.

As for butler, I think he is doing fine for his 7th start. You can not grow on the sideline just watching others play. Ryan has been good too. And we haven't lost yet so something is going right. You can not expect them to stop every single catch. That's unreasonable.
 
And something else too. Tom lit the best defense in the league up, would have been even worse if not for the drops, with the best and highest paid CB in the Nfl along with a great complimentary secondary and no one is saying how they should not trade any of the dbs but we win and the jets convert some third downs and it's how bad our dbs are and how we should get some free agent or trade for someone. If there was a more positive attitude towards our team can you how much fun it would be.
 
Antonio Cromartie 4 year/$32m
Buster Skrine 4 year/$25m

How are the Jets affording those two as well as the huge deal they gave Revis? Their depth must be paper thin.

Fitzpatrick's cap number is only $3.25 million and Ivory's is only $2.75 million, so that helps.
 
@ArmandoSalguero: Patriots single-covering Jarvis Landry with Malcolm Butler a lot.

@FO_ASchatz: Pats clearly want Malcolm Butler on Jarvis Landry. Butler was waiting for him even when Landry was lined up in backfield on that third down.

I still read comments that Butler is more of a #2 CB than a #1 CB right now. What do people expect out of a #1 CB, Deion Sanders and Revis?

Underrated night from Butler IMO. Him neutralizing the Dolphin's best player by himself for most of the game played a big part in the D dominating (5 receptions for 57 yards).
 
I think Butler had a good game last night. He gave up a few catches, but overall he was pretty good.

How many great number 1 shut down corners are there in the league now....Revis, Haden, Sherman, Chris Harris.....not that many. Hopefully, he keeps getting better each week!!!!!
 
With our front seven playing like it is, there is less pressure on Butler to be Revis.
 
To be fair, Jackson was just getting back up to speed, but Butler played out of his mind that game. Even if that's his absolute ceiling, he's certainly a #1.
 
When being targeted 5 or more times in a game, 5.0 yards per catch is tied for the 2nd lowest in Jackson's career
 
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