Good Malcolm Butler Article with BB's insights

True and interesting part from BB.




Butler's Journey from 'Reject' Prospect to Revis Replacement

OK, I had definitely read in previous articles that Butler ran a 4.45 for the Pats when he came in for a tryout. Now it's a 4.54.

This is rich....

The day before final cuts, Belichick approached Strap.

"You have a place to stay?" Belichick said.

"No sir; I don't," Strap said. "I'm in the team hotel, and I don't know if I'm going to be around."

The coach's response: "Oh, you are going to be around."

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Concussion Protocol said:

OK, I had definitely read in previous articles that Butler ran a 4.45 for the Pats when he came in for a tryout. Now it's a 4.54.

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I did as well.

4.45 is probably in pads too because he can keep up with those speedsters.

Wow. That was absolutely fascinating, for insight on Belichick as much as Butler. I've never, ever read such candid comments from BB about a current player -- scouting, education, development, evaluation.

I'm impressed that BB opened up so much. It certainly adds a lot of insight to player evaluation, though. We see such a small slice of things from our chairs; it's difficult to really discern scheme fit, let alone the cultural and social expectations for players.

Angelpats said:

4.45 is probably in pads too because he can keep up with those speedsters.

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I think the 4.45 was fed to reporters by his agent. I trust this number more. Whatever, the kid is certainly fast enough.

Great read.

Just read this on bleacher report, terrific article.

not quite the way this board viewed things:

When the Patriots completed their 2014 player evaluations, Belichick came to a somewhat stunning conclusion.

"We felt Malcolm could be our best corner in 2015," Belichick said. "Was he our best corner at the moment? You could have argued that. But with another offseason, another training camp, we felt he should be our best corner. Now, did we know he was going to do this? No. There was a little bit of he should be, we think he's going to be, but we've got to see."

So the Patriots allowed superstar cornerback Darrelle Revis to walk....

Fantastic article. Thank you for sharing.

I don't care what his 40 time is, his make up speed is ridiculous.

I don't know how you can no love what this kid is doing. I'm not sure where he's going, I hope it's great places but he's already given us the greatest singe play in Patriots history. I'll give him a pass, well, forever.

JJDChE said:

I don't care what his 40 time is, his make up speed is ridiculous.

I don't know how you can no love what this kid is doing. I'm not sure where he's going, I hope it's great places but he's already given us the greatest singe play in Patriots history. I'll give him a pass, well, forever.

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it sure burned the Seahawks!

gotta love typos that pass spellcheck, especially when they're so appropriate.

The only thing wrong with the article is that it cites PFF ratings non-ironically.

I think they had to let Revis walk regardless of how they felt about Butler, but it could be they might have felt less urgency to draft or acquire a CB1 type given how high they were on Butler.

No matter how many times I see that interception I'm still in disbelief. Not so much that he was there, you see pass breakups like that a few times a year, but that he made the pick. 99 times out of a 100 the CB drops that ball. He's got Lockette hitting him as the ball gets there, he's got an obscured view. I mean, just amazing. Getting the position and following through on the play in that moment is just unreal.

Butler is quickly becoming one of my favorite players. Between his humbleness, soft spoken, and scrappiness on the field, he is awesome to watch and root for.

Reading this article made me appreciate for about the thousandth time what a great coach Bill Belichick is. You get to see how incredibly focused he is on getting to know players, looking for their strengths and weaknesses and teaching them to overcome them. I can't imagine any player who is ambitious to be the best he possibly could be wouldn't want to play for him.

Terribly written article.

First of all, his nickname is not "strap." It was "scrap" according to Malcolm Butler himself. It was for being scrappy. Hard to believe anything else the writer says when he cannot even get this right.

Second of all, the patriots did not allow Revis to walk. They offered him a deal to try to keep him. They chose to offer him the most they could. He chose to walk.

Interception said:

Terribly written article.

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It's not great, but IMO Pompei could have just typed lorem ipsum around the coach and player quotes and the article would still rate an A+.