Malcolm Butler sort of talks about his SB benching

[sb1]

Deleted wrong thread

 

[sb1]

If Malcolm plays, Pats win another ring. Period. I'll never stop believing that.

 

[Steve102]

Deleted wrong thread

Not the thread for it, but AVP must have made a friend.

 

[rochrist]

It’s possible Belichick said that to him. However it’s quite clear that IF he did (and I don’t think did), it was not convincing because less than a year ago Kraft said it was Bill putting himself above the team.

So either Belichick told his boss and he knows (most likely) or Belichick deflected and his boss was not convinced, nor were many players at the time.

Either way, it’s not both. Kraft clearly thinks Bill made a personal decision and sacrificed the teams best chance at winning for it. And by most accounts, a lot of players do.

And like I said, a star WR got benched for part of a playoff game for making a foot joke about the coach of another team, so this idea that Bill only makes performance based roster decisions and doesn’t let his personal feelings on a matter influence who he lets play just isn’t historically accurate. We’ve seen plenty of examples of his opinion of culture triumphing over the best talent playing and they weren’t all these severe scenarios either like you are laying out. A foot joke, a player missing an alarm, etc. Most of the time it worked out, this was a major time it didn’t and it had consequences. So at the end of the day, it’s hard to judge him too much for it because he usually won doing things his way.

Kraft also paid for an entire rmulti part documentary to trash Belichick.

 

[denverpatsfan]

I'm still upset about this game. Hard to believe it's been 7 years. Nick ****ing Foles. You got to be kidding me.

 

[Lavictoire]

seems like he kinda admitted being out when he wasnt supposed to. he said there is work time and personal time, so yeah.

 

[RobertWeathers]

seems like he kinda admitted being out when he wasnt supposed to. he said there is work time and personal time, so yeah.

Exactly. The core issue in this and my belief is he was sick on Monday and didn't do what the team told him to do to get well. Went out, got worse he was hospitalized, etc.

I also suspect there may have been other things he did/which happened that made it impossible for Bill to play him (meaning this was an issue beyond sitting out a few plays, a qtr, or a half). That's speculation but it had to be something way beyond a simple team infraction.

McCourty said the team knew he wasn't starting all week. Rowe suspected but wasn't confirmed until gameday.

 

[Steve102]

This ^ is what people forget, BB did him a favor by not saying anything. Butler was a free agent and Bill could have told the truth and slammed him in the media.

I really believe that something happened and Bill is, essentially, covering it up. Malcom's penance was not playing, it had to be something egregious and damaging that would have cost him $$$, and Bill, loyal to the player, agreed to never speak about it as long as Butler shut up as well. Ernie spoke of taking things to the grave, as @SVN said, and I think the staff the knows about it as well. I also think they kept it from Kraft, because Kraft would have blabbed, so Bill kept it in his very tight circle of trust.

I believe further that damaged Bill's reputation in the locker room among team leaders because they work their asses off to get to the SB and Bill does something illogical in their eyes.

McCourty said the team knew he wasn't starting all week. Rowe suspected but wasn't confirmed until gameday.

McCourty got the memo, Rowe did not.

 

[RobertWeathers]

I really believe that something happened and Bill is, essentially, covering it up. Malcom's penance was not playing, it had to be something egregious and damaging that would have cost him $$$, and Bill, loyal to the player, agreed to never speak about it as long as Butler shut up as well. Ernie spoke of taking things to the grave, as @SVN said, and I think the staff the knows about it as well. I also think they kept it from Kraft, because Kraft would have blabbed, so Bill kept it in his very tight circle of trust.

I believe further that damaged Bill's reputation in the locker room among team leaders because they work their asses off to get to the SB and Bill does something illogical in their eyes.

McCourty got the memo, Rowe did not.

I also believe Bill kept it from Kraft. No way Blabbing Bob would have kept that in house.

Aside from Bill and Malcolm I suspect the only people who know what really happened are Ernie, Patricia, Steve, Brian, Amanda, Berj, Lombardi and maybe Caserio....

 

[Steve102]

I also believe Bill kept it from Kraft. No way Blabbing Bob would have kept that in house.

Aside from Bill and Malcolm I suspect the only people who know what really happened are Ernie, Patricia, Steve, Brian, Amanda, Berj, Lombardi and maybe Caserio....

 

[denverpatsfan]

Why the **** all this drama with the Pats? Which of the 9 games did not involve bull ****? No BS for the Eagles this week. Everyone is having fun getting prepared for the game. Everyone is playing too.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Why the **** all this drama with the Pats? Which of the 9 games did not involve bull ****? No BS for the Eagles this week. Everyone is having fun getting prepared for the game. Everyone is playing too.

IIRC 38 vs the Panthers was pretty low key SB week except for Charlie defending Hochstein. Thankfully the game was epic.

 

[TommyD4207]

If Malcolm plays, Pats win another ring. Period. I'll never stop believing that.

You believe a lot of things that are wrong.

 

[sb1]

You believe a lot of things that are wrong.

Maybe but I’m not wrong about that.

 

[Wozzy]

Maybe but I’m not wrong about that.

Butler gave up six touchdowns in coverage, tying for third-most at the position that season, while also yielding the 11th-most yards at 698 and ranking 108th in yards after the catch at 233.

He also had the gall to go out and blame the coaching staff because he let Jay Cutler and a 5'7" sixth round pick WR destroy him.

Incompetence would have been reason enough to bench Butler. Vrabel benched Butler for a nickel corner after signing him to a large contract for sucking. Again… facts suck for you.

 

[imahobgoblin]

I still think he went out partying and got caught doing pot.

 

[sb1]

Butler gave up six touchdowns in coverage, tying for third-most at the position that season, while also yielding the 11th-most yards at 698 and ranking 108th in yards after the catch at 233.

He also had the gall to go out and blame the coaching staff because he let Jay Cutler and a 5'7" sixth round pick WR destroy him.

Incompetence would have been reason enough to bench Butler. Vrabel benched Butler for a nickel corner after signing him to a large contract for sucking. Again… facts suck for you.

What Butler did with the Titans couldn't be any more irrelevant to that game. Fact: Sans Butler it was Eagles 41 Patriots 33.
And speaking of incompetence how did the personnel that was out there instead of Butler do against Foles? The Eagles players are on record being amused that Rowe was playing instead of Butler. Nuff said. Butler didn't have to be Deion Sanders but there's no question they win it with one or two stops that they don't get with the other guys out there. Yet for some reason Bill decided that having that personnel out there getting smashed by Foles all game was better than the alternative.

They lost because Bill blew it. He had a lot of great coaching moves over the years but this is the worst coaching move in Super Bowl history hands down. Period.

 

[lancerman]

Kraft also paid for an entire rmulti part documentary to trash Belichick.

He did. But you know what, nobody in Belichick's camp or anybody even close to Belichick went to bat for him on that him and said "Kraft is lying about the Butler benching". And Bill has no problem calling someone out on this type of ****, hell Belichick isn't actually all that secretive for why he benches players. If it was pot, if it was bad practices, if it was missing an alarm, that would have been abundantly clear.

People typically don't keep secrets and let other people set the narrative if the truth benefits them.

 

[RobertWeathers]

He did. But you know what, nobody in Belichick's camp or anybody even close to Belichick went to bat for him on that him and said "Kraft is lying about the Butler benching". And Bill has no problem calling someone out on this type of ****, hell Belichick isn't actually all that secretive for why he benches players. If it was pot, if it was bad practices, if it was missing an alarm, that would have been abundantly clear.

People typically don't keep secrets and let other people set the narrative if the truth benefits them.

It was a Kraft production. They didn't want anyone coming to Bill's defense.

BB never says why a player has been benched.

...and it's serves no one to talk about it. No need to dig up bones.

Kraft wanted to bring it up, so it was.

 

[lancerman]

It was a Kraft production. They didn't want anyone coming to Bill's defense.

BB never says why a player has been benched.

...and it's serves no one to talk about it. No need to dig up bones.

Kraft wanted to bring it up, so it was.

We know why every single other high profile benching on the Patriots happened. Butler is the only one we don't know. We know why Welker missed time for a foot joke, we know why Gray got benched for missing an alarm clock, we know why guys got benched for games because of fumbling. There's exactly one mystery that nobody has gotten an explanation for over the 24 years Belichick coached on the Patriots.

Bill has had zero problems calling people out for talking **** about him and making stuff up before. You're making it sound like the production was the only time he could respond. It's been a year and frankly stories of players getting pissed off and thinking it was a personal decision have been out there for years. And we know Bill's camp works the media, guys like Lombardi etc are all over the place. When Bill wants his story out, it gets out. We've seen it for years. Hell two years ago he was making sure all of sudden the terms of his contract were out in public when it looked like he was on the hotseat. When he wants his stance out there because it benefits him, it gets out there.

Again it's very telling that the owner of the Patriots publicly said that the 2017 Super Bowl was the first time in his partnership with Belichick that Bill put his personal matters above the team and none of Bill's talking heads or anyone from his camp has bothered to refute it. There's also a reason when the Brady break up was happening and his team was talking to the media, they specified the 2017 Super Bowl as a huge souring point in the relationship.

He's not having his guys in the media back him up because everyone is fine letting sleeping dogs lie, and if he calls certain people liars over it for making it known they disagree with how he handled that, then he gives them a reason to air it out to defend themselves.