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I remember reading this (In defense of Bill Belichick benching Malcolm Butler in Super Bowl 52) after I went back and re-watched some of that Super Bowl and I think the writer gets a lot right, especially with regards to the stupidity of going with a 3-4 front. And I also agreed that Butler, at least by then, was not doing great on the type of receivers that the Eagles played.
Inserting Malcolm Butler was not any sort of guarantee that the Patriots magically stop the Eagles offense, especially if we going to start zooming in on his tackling ability, which has nothing to do with a RB running through the middle of the LOS which is what the Eagles did here.
That said, I still would've liked to have seen if Butler could have done anything as it was brutal watching that defense get shredded by Foles.
Once again, he deactivated Alan Branch for the game. Why????
If he was dead set against playing Butler - - even if someone like Slater was begging for him to come in the second half to "stop the bleeding", then why not fill that empty slot with Branch????
He kept TWO defensive starters off that field that night against a team that scored 41 points with Nick Foles. That sentence bears repeating.
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