Brice Butler Talks His Way From Cowboys Locker Room To Skip Bayless' Cesspool
FRISCO (105.3 The Fan) - Brice Butler wanted to the Dallas Cowboys to play him. And by voicing that opinion via Skip Bayless' cesspool of a TV show, Butler did indeed "get played.''
By the despicable Bayless.
The attention-seeking Butler foolishly allowed Bayless and FSI colleagues to bait the receiver into answering a question about whether he could have been more productive than Dez Bryant if given the opportunity.
"One hundred percent,'' Butler replied. "Because I'm ready … It's my time. I've been there for three years. … If I get 150 targets, I'm going to catch 100-plus balls."
Butler, 27, is obviously delusional. There is nothing on his resume to indicate that he's capable of 100 catches or worthy of 150 targets — the sort of numbers only the most-utilized and most-elite pass-catchers (think Julio Jones, Antonio Brown and Larry Fitzgerald) are allowed. With his "Uncle Rico''-like boasting ("How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains? Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been State Champions! No doubt! No doubt in my mind!'') Brice creates a two-peas-in-a-pod existence with Bayless, infamous for his own boasting of a brilliant athletic career that actually happened only in the warped cerebrum hovering just behind Skip's cosmetic-surgery-lifted eyebrows.
What Butler fails to understand: There are thousands of tall, strong, fast, athletic guys who could've "won State'' if only Coach would've recognized their unique gifts … and those thousands of guys are today running forklifts at Home Depots, spinning yarns in the breakroom about their Glory Days to co-workers between slurps from a Cup-a-Noodle.
My assault on this sordid visit isn't a defense of The Cowboys Way; the guys inside The Star know what Brice is about and well before this self-embarrassment, even his locker-room friends habitually rolled their eyes at his fantastic view of himself. So Bryant and company will surely survive a goofy attack on them by the team's fourth- or fifth-best wideout.
No, my problem is with the alliance, as this interview puts Butler "in business'' with Bayless, which means he's sleeping with a snake, partnering with a hemorrhoid, making out with a urinal.
If you, as a Cowboys fan, want to die on the "Brice Butler Is Better Than Dez Bryant (or for that matter, Terrance Williams) hill, you are making a silly choice.
Because that isn't a hill Brice planted himself atop; that's a pile of Skip Bayless feces.
Bayless set up the Thursday TV interview by promoting Butler as "the Cowboys' best receiver,'' a muck rake detected by anyone with more sense than ego … and therefore, Butler misunderstood it. He considered it flattery, he considered it sincere, and he sold out for an opportunity to bask in an opportunity that will likely backfire on him.
Maybe a team will be attracted to a player who, after last spring signing a one-year, $1.1-mil deal, did after all average 20 yards per catch while catching just 15 passes. (There is a nuanced debate to be had as to whether he was under-utilized here.) Or maybe a team will wonder why Brice Butler was naive enough to think "my time'' means a TV appearance that was far less an expose ("There were times where I was like, 'I'm making plays, aren't we trying to win games? Why am I not on the field?'') and far more of a malcontent whining through a stomach-churning clown show.
The boldest statement Butler issued during his FS1 tour reads, to the uniformed, like some declaration of independence from the Cowboys.
"With Dallas, the situation has to be right for me to go back," Butler said proudly. "I wouldn't mind being back in Dallas, but there's going to have to be some changes made, and I'll definitely voice that with the team and the organization. … I have to be a starter. If I'm not starting, I'm not going back."
I've got news for him: Brice Butler didn't make the decision about his low-priority future Cowboys status; the Cowboys made that decision for him. And they did so well before he allowed himself to "get played'' by a diseased carnival barker.
