Again doesn't answer my question why Bob would make up that it was something personal with Bill that kept Butler on the bench.
Also the record shows Brady won a Super Bowl without Bill and your hoodied hero has a .426 w-l record post Brady. That's absolutely pathetic.
Read it and weep.
totally inaccurate read of the facts. It's right up there with the MYTH that the Pats "let Brady go". That is NOT what happened. Not even close.
For the previous 4 years of that superbowl run. (3 superbowls and one AFCCG and a playoff berth) the Pats had completely sold out and were great over that period because of it. But the fact remained that by the end of the 2019 season that run was OVER.
The were DEEP in cap hell. They literally couldn't sign Brady without losing what few assets they already had. Keeping Brady would have meant him spending his final years struggling with a stripped down shadow of championship contender.
Just think about this. In 2020 the Pats paid their QB $1MM and were STILL in cap hell. How were they going to pay Brady $25MM and still field a contending team. Who else would have been cap casualties? There was no way that Brady was going to come back. Between his wife and the situation of the roster, in what world does Brady want to come back. He sold his MA home well before he left the team.
No Brady was out the door by his OWN volition, and it was the right decision ... for him. Brady's leaving was for a LOT of reasons, but the biggest one was the YEARS of constant paying forward of cap debt, that finally came due in 2020. No one "cheaped out". There was no conspiracy. It was simply Brady doing what was best for Brady and the Pats being stuck in a situation of their own making caused by a financial commitment to be great from 2014- 2019. A six year period of great play and fan enjoyment.
It lasted longer than most runs occur these days, but it ended. No one's fault. It's more like the nature of today's game. I never get why so many fans want to BLAME some one.
As for Butler: The very fact that we STILL don't know definitively why Butler sat tells me that HE wasn't the answer to the Pats issues in that superbowl. He was NOT ready to play regardless of the reasons. There is nothing in Bill's long history that would lead one to believe that he would keep a needed asset off the field for a personal reason which is what is always implied.
What IS known from Bill's history is that he DOESN'T throw his players under the bus and he hasn't with Butler. Butler did SOMETHING and Bill protected him by never telling us what. wasn't that Butler did something and Bill punished him. It was more like Butler did something which caused him to be physically able to play as well. It is the ONLY explanation that would explain why Butler would have come back to play here.