Bill Belichick Only Needed One Practice To Know Malcolm Butler Could Make It In The NFL
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Of the 32 head coaches in the NFL, it's reasonable to assume that no more than one or two might have spent any time at all breaking down film or reading scouting reports on players from the University of West Alabama. With 128 Division-I FBS college football programs, the talent pool is certainly rich enough at that level for coaches to mostly bypass consideration for players in the FCS and spare themselves completely from wading into the world of Division II.
Yet, as everyone knows at this point, finding diamonds in the rough is and always has been a point of pride for Bill Belichick. And through 13 games in his second NFL season, it's safe to say that Malcolm Butler fits that description.
Bleacher Report's Dan Pompei wrote a feature about Butler's improbable rise to stardom, and it includes several fascinating nuggets about the process that led to him even making the NFL.
Coming out of the University of West Alabama, a school that had only produced a handful of NFL players in its history, Butler essentially received zero interest from NFL teams prior to the 2014 NFL draft. Yet long after the final pick was taken, and after Butler had considered options in the CFL and the Arena Football League, Butler got a call from the Patriots. It was his only offer.
He flew to Foxboro, worked out one day, hit the practice field the next day on a tryout basis, and that was that. Belichick had seen enough.
"After one practice," Belichick told Pompei, "we said, 'We should sign this guy.'"
Those who covered the team or followed closely during the preseason couldn't help but notice Butler as a standout, particularly in action against Washington. Clearly, the kid was good enough to make an NFL roster. But was he good enough to make the roster of a Super Bowl favorite that already employed two high-priced acquisitions in Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner ahead of him on the depth chart? Even after earning the nickname "Strap" for his relentlessly tight coverage, Butler himself wasn't sure.
From Pompei:
The day before final cuts, Belichick approached Strap.
"You have a place to stay?" Belichick said.
"No sir, I don't," Strap said. "I'm in the team hotel, and I don't know if I'm going to be around."
The coach's response: "Oh, you are going to be around."
It was a decision that panned out rather well. If it weren't for the Patriots employing Butler on the goal line in the final minutes of Super Bowl XLIX, we all would've spent the last calendar year discussing the Belichick-era Patriots as three-time Super Bowl losers. The "legacies" of Tom Brady and Belichick would be tinted with a bit less light, and the ceaseless annoyance that was the "DeflateGate" saga would have been doubly or triply bothersome for New Englanders in the months that followed that game.
Instead, a banner hangs high above the Gillette Stadium field, thanks largely to the kid from West Alabama.
That same kid is now the Patriots' No. 1 cornerback, stepping into the huge vacancy left by Revis, contributing to a top-10 Patriots defense that has at times carried the team along the way to an 11-2 record through 13 games.
It's really a tremendous story, and is worth a full read at Bleacher Report.
Read more from Michael Hurley by clicking here. You can email him or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.
