Is this why Malcolm Butler didn't play in the Super Bowl?

[TheRainMaker]

Aside from the Butler debacle, the first thing I'd ask is why did he go for it on 4th and 13 in Super Bowl 42 instead of letting Gostkowski try 48 yards in a dome.

The call that’s more underrated and not talked about more was Bill not challenging Pierre Woods clearly recovering the fumble in Giants territory before Bradshaw wrestled it away in the pile.

The entire game was a total s*** show and the Pats D had many chances to put the offense in a position to kick field goals at worst to put the game out of reach.

this is not the first time.....even though he eventually got to play, Tully Banta Cain was benched in the 2006 AFCC and ERic Alexander got his only start in his entire NFL career.

As @RobertWeathers said, it was to get more speed on the field to match up with Clark. But I think he would’ve started regardless of Harrison’s availability.

Poor Alexander, he got abused by every TE on that depth chart that day. Manning found a massive weakness on the field and kept going after him like we would do playing Madden Football.

That only started after the momentum swinging face guarding call which was the turning point. The Colts looked dead to rights until they got that bail out call on 3rd and long with Hobbs providing perfect coverage. Now they had the ball in the Pats territory, the crowd went nuts and the Colts were given new life.

Both that and the Butler benching were fireable for any other coach.

Yep. Look what happened to Doug Pederson. Inexplicably benches the QB who was playing okay for a worse player. They lose the game and don’t make the playoffs. The Super Bowl honeymoon wore off, so his bags were packed.

 

[Wozzy]

Disagree. It was a guy who really wanted to win and wanted to play and was frustrated and bewildered why he was benched. NOT a guy who was checked out or not taking the Superbowl seriously. Even his teammates after the game said they had no idea he was not going to play. Nice job confusing the entire seconday an hour before the Superbowl. So let's stop pretending this was the game plan, it was not well thought out at all.

The game plan is always to go on without a sick or injured player. The corners they used were as good or better matchups (taller) with a tall trio of WR’s. Butler played terrible in 2017… everyone seemingly wants to ignore that.

 

[venecol]

Yup. That makes it even weirder.

It demolishes all the arguments that he couldn't play because he was sick, or unprepared, etc.

This is simple: Bill put him out there to teach him and the rest of the team that you don't f^*k with Lil Steven. He made him run a ST play which was apparently what may have caused the incident w/ Lil Steven during practice, then forced him to watch his teammates get demolished by f^*king Foles.

This "leaked" fable is preempting a possible coming out of the truth now that Butler retired. I imagine that the most ardent, diehard Bill sycophants would be the only fans that wouldn't want to lynch Bill over that reason for benching Malcolm.

 

[Simpelton]

I don't know how anyone can deny the obvious. Bill doesn't make many mistakes but that one was a doozy.

My question is this: If it was something as simple as Butler being sick why didn't we know the next day?

Well you can invent conspiracy theories or do what sane people do, shrug, figure Bill knows more about the situation than we ever will, and move on with our lives.

 

[Simpelton]

It demolishes all the arguments that he couldn't play because he was sick, or unprepared, etc.

No it doesn't. If anything it strengthened the argument that they were trying to get him out there. They tested the waters for one special teams play and found out it wasn't gonna work so they gave it up.

 

[TheRainMaker]

The game plan is always to go on without a sick or injured player.

Didn’t many players get the flu in the 2006 AFCCG? They played.

The corners they used were as good or better matchups (taller) with a tall trio of WR’s.

You’d think Gilmore was going to take on Jeffrey at worst. Butler could’ve matched up with Agohlor. It was well known that the Eagles were going to look for the Pats worst graded CB in the NFL in Eric Rowe yet Bill made it too easy for them putting him on their best WR.

Butler played terrible in 2017… everyone seemingly wants to ignore that.

Nobody is ignoring that. However, everyone that agrees with him being benched ignore the alternatives were worse.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

This is one of Bill's Wrong Decisions. We're not talking about Bademosi here. And we're not talking about a preseason exhibition game.

Bill never treated Malcolm as anybody special. Including fining and sitting him because he missed his flight to training camp.

Tom was gone after this. It was Kraft who convinced him to stay. Which goes down in history beside John Hannah's dad doing the same when Hog was ready to request being traded to the Raiders to play with his brother.

Both times resulted in a Super Bowl appearance.

 

[Wozzy]

No, there are other reasons a pro might be crying. Obviously.

The Pats defense being battered doesn't mitigate Belichick's mistake, it makes it worse. And no, Ertz's 34 receiving yards wasn't the only problem, weird to suggest it was.

Ertz had 67 yards receiving with a TD, almost all of it came in the second half after Chung was lost to injury. The CB’s did a good job on their WR’s in the second half. Butler wasn’t a strong safety. Their first and second string SS were injured.

Butler also was one of the worst ranked starting corners in the NFL in yards and TD’s allowed. Why does everyone ignore this? He also wasn’t an amazing athlete, he was a guy who got by on fundamentals and technique. He got destroyed by Jay Cutler and 5’6” Jakeem Grant when they played the Dolphins and he tried to blame his coaches. He signed a big deal with Tennessee next season and got beat out by Adoree Jackson.

Butler peaked in 2016. It’s a laughably bad take he was the reason they lost the 2017 Super Bowl, but feelings are hurt and people need a scapegoat.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Like several nightmarish wrong decisions in SB42, this one was obviously wrong the second it was made.

But I'll never ignore or forget Bill's right decisions.

 

[aluminum seats]

Ertz had 67 yards receiving with a TD, almost all of it came in the second half after Chung was lost to injury. The CB’s did a good job on their WR’s in the second half. Butler wasn’t a strong safety. Their first and second string SS were injured.

Butler also was one of the worst ranked starting corners in the NFL in yards and TD’s allowed. Why does everyone ignore this? He also wasn’t an amazing athlete, he was a guy who got by on fundamentals and technique. He got destroyed by Jay Cutler and 5’6” Jakeem Grant when they played the Dolphins and he tried to blame his coaches. He signed a big deal with Tennessee next season and got beat out by Adoree Jackson.

Butler peaked in 2016. It’s a laughably bad take he was the reason they lost the 2017 Super Bowl, but feelings are hurt and people need a scapegoat.

He had 34 yards in the second half. 33 in the first. So no, "almost all" didn't come in the second half.

Yes, Butler was one of the best CBs in the league in 2016, and he didn't reach those heights in 2017, but he was obviously better than the players Belichick put out there.

It was a terrible decision that he had time to correct and didn't. Belichick may one day admit that, at which point I guess you'll have to pivot. But it's baffling why you would want to double down so strongly on a decision that resulted in a historically bad defensive effort. It has nothing to do with "getting over it" or "hurt feelings" or a scapegoat, just making a judgement on something that was obvious as it was occurring.

 

[Wozzy]

Didn’t many players get the flu in the 2006 AFCCG? They played.


You’d think Gilmore was going to take on Jeffrey at worst. Butler could’ve matched up Agohlor. It was well known that the Eagles were going to look for the Pats worst graded CB in the NFL in Eric Rowe yet Bill made it too easy for them putting him on their best WR.


Nobody is ignoring that. However, everyone that agrees with him being benched ignore the alternatives were worse.

Stephon Gilmore 6'1" 190, Eric Rowe 6'1" 205, Johnson Bademosi 6' 206 all of whom ran a 4.4 forty out of college.

Vs.

Alshon Jeffery 6'3" 218, Torrey Smith 6' 205, Nelson Agholor 6' 200 all of whom ran a 4.4 forty out of college.

Or…

Malcolm Butler 5'10 190 who ran a 4.6 out of college, who was at both a height and speed disadvantage and played the worst season of his career to that point before missing practice Super Bowl week.

Gilmore, Rowe and Bademosi weren’t the problem once Steph was put on Alshon.
The Eagles rushed the ball 27 times, the QB rushes were zero. Foles was sacked zero times, pressured zero times.

We've won a Super Bowl with Troy Brown playing nickel corner and other playoff games with Edelman playing corner. Philly had the biggest and best OLine in the NFL in 2017.

If you don't have mass and talent in the middle defensively, teams can simply run and overpower you. It's the very reason Payaton Manning's Colts never beat the Pats, we could always run on them.

You can't create a pass rush without first forcing multiple linemen to converge on two DT's, ends can't start to get pressure without one on one situations against tackles. Linebackers can't make plays without the big nasties pushing the pocket into the QB's face and destroying plays at inception. They lost that game at the line of scrimmage, another corner who was playing horrible all season wouldn’t have changed that unless he made it worse.

 

[Wozzy]

He had 34 yards in the second half. 33 in the first. So no, "almost all" didn't come in the second half.

Yes, Butler was one of the best CBs in the league in 2016, and he didn't reach those heights in 2017, but he was obviously better than the players Belichick put out there.

It was a terrible decision that he had time to correct and didn't. Belichick may one day admit that, at which point I guess you'll have to pivot. But it's baffling why you would want to double down on so strongly on a decision that resulted in a historically bad defensive effort. It has nothing to do with "getting over it" or "hurt feelings" or a scapegoat, just making a judgement on something that was obvious as it was occurring.

Football is won in the trenches, they lost the game in the trenches. Butler was horrible all season, got lit up all season. Pretty simple.

The Butler narrative was pushed immediately and the media picked it up and ran with it. Butler was always overrated, he played at a pro bowl level on a really good defense but was never a superior athlete. He had a great story, it should be made into a movie some day.

 

[aluminum seats]

The Butler narrative was pushed immediately and the media picked it up and ran with it.

Has zero to do with "narratives" or the media.

Benching his starting cornerback in the super bowl and refusing to course correct resulted in a catastrophically bad defensive performance. Pinballing around with inaccurate statements about Ertz getting "almost all" of his yards in the second half or Ertz being the only one causing trouble (Agholor had more receiving yards for the second half, as well as the game), or it being about hurt feelings or media narratives or a dozen other things doesn't change what it was: a historically horrific decision that likely cost his team a super bowl.

 

[VectorPrime]

I'd like to ask Bill about the 4th and 2 play in Indy.

I have been unhappy with Belichick for years now but I never blamed him for this.

 

[Hyped]

505 yards and lost the Superbowl.....

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Ertz had 67 yards receiving with a TD, almost all of it came in the second half after Chung was lost to injury. The CB’s did a good job on their WR’s in the second half. Butler wasn’t a strong safety. Their first and second string SS were injured.

Butler also was one of the worst ranked starting corners in the NFL in yards and TD’s allowed. Why does everyone ignore this? He also wasn’t an amazing athlete, he was a guy who got by on fundamentals and technique. He got destroyed by Jay Cutler and 5’6” Jakeem Grant when they played the Dolphins and he tried to blame his coaches. He signed a big deal with Tennessee next season and got beat out by Adoree Jackson.

Butler peaked in 2016. It’s a laughably bad take he was the reason they lost the 2017 Super Bowl, but feelings are hurt and people need a scapegoat.

Intangibles and impressions count. Belichick won out most of the time defying them (Milloy, Welker(except the Jets playoff loss), etc.). I think he didn't think twice about the decision. But, if he thought differently, Tom would be finishing his career here.

There are lots of tangible, logical factors and reasons to back up George Siefert starting Young in that first NFCCG vs. JJ's Cowboys and leaving Montana third on the depth chart. But I would have started Montana. Like Brady, he simply earned the right to play in the biggest game, he gave the 49ers their best chance to win, he's the better quarterback...and Dallas would have sh*t their pants when the entire stadium would have erupted, and they then saw him coming out of the huddle to take the snap. People are mesmerized by Young's passing stats the same way they are by Bledsoe's/Eason's.

 

[Biffins]

And if he puts Butler in and Butler's as not-field-ready as the rumors suggest, he gets dunked on and we're right back at the same place, only we're all blaming Butler rather than Bill.

People seem to have this what-if fantasy that says that if Butler is in the game he's playing it like a top 10 corner in the country. That's not the Malcolm Butler we had in SB52.

If I'm Bill, I put the lightning rod on my own head rather than leaving a sick, stressed-out, checked-out player on the field to die. It's my job as Head Coach to do what's best for the team, and if what's best for the team is not to play the guy who is, on paper, our best cornerback, but let's be honest, has played like 100% all natural recycled food for the past several weeks and is physically ill, you make the decision that will focus attention on you, rather than letting the player fall on his sword.

Bill's one of the best coaches in the history of the NFL. and I know how much he WANTS to win Superbowls. If there was any thought in his mind that Butler was the best option to put on the field against Foles, he would have been on the field. This is not Rich Kotite making decisions seemingly at random, this is one of the most methodical, logical, rational, prepared head coaches in the game. If he didn't think Butler could play, then I'm not going to give him a lot of griief because odds are, he was exactly right.

BTW I hate this blame-the coach narrative because we all KNOW that the eagles had a little something to do with how that Superbowl played out.

It’s all relative. It’s not about what kind of Butler we had, it’s about the alternatives. And any kind of Butler was better than Richards and Bademosi.

 

[Biffins]

Who were you going to grab on short notice to replace him?

Also if a guy is sick there's every chance he starts feeling better as the game rolls on. Maybe they were just hoping he could recover enough to come out for a play or two and it didn't wind up happening.

Someone for special teams or edge rusher or another RB. Anyone. Point is if there’s no scenario in which he plays, why dress him?

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

He had 34 yards in the second half. 33 in the first. So no, "almost all" didn't come in the second half.

Yes, Butler was one of the best CBs in the league in 2016, and he didn't reach those heights in 2017, but he was obviously better than the players Belichick put out there.

It was a terrible decision that he had time to correct and didn't. Belichick may one day admit that, at which point I guess you'll have to pivot. But it's baffling why you would want to double down on so strongly on a decision that resulted in a historically bad defensive effort. It has nothing to do with "getting over it" or "hurt feelings" or a scapegoat, just making a judgement on something that was obvious as it was occurring.

Willis Reed was injured before the deciding game of the NBA finals vs. LA. But he started, making of couple of early jump shots. He couldn't do much thereafter, but he didn't have to. The Knicks were clicking, and the Lakers folded.

The Eagles, like the Giants, were the underdog. Any little unnecessary edge you as the favorite just give to them will be (and was) taken advantage of and inspire them - and (sorry) deflate us.

 

[Ivan]

But he was ready to play vs Seattle in the super bowl lol this is getting embarrassing. A professional athlete not ready for a game mentality with two weeks to prepare comical

It’s not hard to understand when you take into account the fact that he was about to hit free agency and he was pissed off at being put in the slot in the biggest game of the year, which he saw as a demotion. Go back and look at how he played against big receivers that season, he was terrible against them, and that was Philly’s strength, Butler has admitted he wasn’t ready for that game.