Malcolm Butler Mega Thread

[Soliel]

My brains going to implode

 

[maineman209]

My brains going to implode

For years, I was afraid that would happen to me. As it turns out, it's just slowly shrunk down to the size of a peach pit.

 

[signbabybrady]

Whatever the factors are they "were not without merit" assuming this true X and Os don't matter Butler is to blame and not the coaches.

BB didn't do himself any favors by covering this up and left a lot in the air to speculate about but if it had merit than what's the point in discussing Xs and Os? If there needed to be an event with merit to cause his benching we can assume without the event the Xs would have matched the Os differently but BB felt there was no choice.

 

[lancerman]

Whatever the factors are they "were not without merit" assuming this true X and Os don't matter Butler is to blame and not the coaches.

BB didn't do himself any favors by covering this up and left a lot in the air to speculate about but if it had merit than what's the point in discussing Xs and Os? If there needed to be an event with merit to cause his benching we can assume without the event the Xs would have matched the Os differently but BB felt there was no choice.

Because this is what's happening on this board. When it's a report criticizing Belichick, all of a sudden it's not reliable and unless we have named sources people don't want to believe it. When it's bad regarding Butler whether it's a tweet by some random dude nobody heard of or some unnamed players, all of a sudden it's the truth and we should believe it full stop and the discussion should end and we shouldn't even discuss whether it impacted the game.

 

[reflexblue]

All good, if you didn't someone else would have 'cause...

Its all about BUTLER

 

[luuked]

The question with Butler never has been why was he benched, we had enough breadcrumbs on that already. He had a subpar season that compared to 2015 and 2016 was simply bad. He missed practice reps during SB prep and then had according to reports a pretty bad week when he actually did practice. I never had a problem with BB benching him and strategically it made sense to me.

The sticking point for many will simply be why none of the adjustments included Butler when it became obvious that we had big issues stopping the Eagles. Personally I think Butler had one more (verbal?) meltdown in the hours before the game when he realized that he would not play a big role and got his ass totally benched. Maybe this even happened right after the inactives were declared.

Either way some will blame BB for "being arrogant" despite historically always doing everything he can to put the team in a better position to win a game. For me this will always be more on Butler not being able to hold it together for one more game which was the friggin SB. Yes, BB could have thrown a player in that had bad practices and missed time with a illness or just trust the players and their preparation. Like he did against the Seahawks when he benched Arrington and brought Butler on the field.

Whatever.. it is over now and a new season awaits..

 

[patriot1136]

Honestly, I wonder more about what might've happened had Jon Jones been healthy.

I wondered that too. Or in general, if any of our injured players were back if they would have made a difference. for me, it was more what might have happened if Cooks stayed in the game.

 

[luuked]

That was their base package in the SB. Richards was in as an additional SS/LB in the "dime" package.

Bademosi only came in as a temporary replacement SS for a few snaps while Chung was out - not something their either Butler or Jones could have done better. Although also a "CB", Bademosi is significantly bigger than both Butler and Jones, as well as being a very sound tackler/block-shedder on ST. That Bademosi effed-up on a play doesn't mean that Butler or Jones would have done it better.

I wonder if at some point people will realize that Bademosi or Richards playing had nothing to do with Butler but with missed snaps by Chung due to injury and their respective specific packages.

Richards -- being the whipping boy he is -- played exactly around his season average in the same role as always. And yet people love to live in their imaginary world where BB sabotaged the SB by letting Bademosi or Richards play over Butler.

 

[luuked]

Honestly, I wonder more about what might've happened had Jon Jones been healthy.

Butler would have been inactive.

 

[Soliel]

I’m waiting for the barely comprehensible tirades to begin.

 

[Kontradiction]

And now “unnamed sources” are leaking things to the press. Anyone still in denial that the 2017 locker room was an issue?

 

[Love The Drake]

And now “unnamed sources” are leaking things to the press. Anyone still in denial that the 2017 locker room was an issue?

Who could it of been?

 

[Kontradiction]

Who could it of been?

Well, I don’t think it was Gronk.

 

[signbabybrady]

And now “unnamed sources” are leaking things to the press. Anyone still in denial that the 2017 locker room was an issue?

Still no one you'd want running the ship more so let's not perpetuate this myth of some fractured dysfunctional locker room. Also these leaks were players siding with BB.

 

[TomPatriot]

Horrible locker room. No fun. Unhappy players. A lot of injuries. Kraft-BB-TB squabbles.

And the Pats were one score from winning the Super Bowl.

 

[Jlaff]

My initial instinct was that the person to blame for Butler's benching was Butler himself. And I'm still mad at him for it now. Don't care how classy he was, what would have been even more classy was admitting you f'd up off the bat.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Report: Patriots to allow players “Hawaiian Shirt Day” for select practices in 2018 season

 

[RayClay]

Horrible locker room. No fun. Unhappy players. A lot of injuries. Kraft-BB-TB squabbles.

And the Pats were one score from winning the Super Bowl.

Imagine the effort it was to hide their disdain for the team, the coach and each other in all those post game locker room videos.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

This is pathetic damage control by Pats media lapdogs

1. The Patriots defense had the lowest points given up from weeks 5 through 17.
2. This included games with Gilmore out and Butler played every game, started, played 98% of snaps

Butler was way better than any other corner not named Gilmore.

3. The Patriots refused to adjust from their crappy 4 safety game plan in the halftime of the Super Bowl

4. The Patriots lost because the offense scored enough but the defense could not make a single stop all game long. Butler would have certainly helped

 

[RobertWeathers]

My initial instinct was that the person to blame for Butler's benching was Butler himself. And I'm still mad at him for it now. Don't care how classy he was, what would have been even more classy was admitting you f'd up off the bat.

Exactly. But that's not society today. We'd rather link the root cause of a problem to everything else than the person actually responsible