No modern player has gone from "Hero" to "Zero" quite like the cornerback, Malcolm Butler.
There is no doubt that the NFL has become America’s premiere sports league. The Super Bowl is an annual national holiday, and viewership for even the most putrid games (See: Colts and Broncos in December on TNF) far exceeds viewership for the “high profile” games of any other major sports league. Is this a result of the fact that the NFL’s limited regular season schedule elevates the importance of each game? Is it a result of gambling? Fantasy football? Are those the same thing!?
I propose that Americans are so enthralled with football because it serves as a souped up version of the American dream; one of the basic ideas of this dream is that anyone can succeed if they work hard. The NFL provides opportunity for fame and fortune beyond any of our wildest dreams to anyone who it employs, from household names like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers to practice squad players cloaked in obscurity. Of course–just as there is a flipside to every coin–the NFL’s version of the American dream has a dark side: just as quickly as a player can rise to stardom, they can also fall off the face of the earth and into the dark depths from which they once emerged. The former is exhilarating and surreal, while the latter is humiliating and crushing.
No modern player’s career exemplifies this quite like the cornerback, Malcolm Butler. Prior to February 2015, Butler was little more than an obscure rookie backup corner, clinging to the New England Patriots’ roster by a thread. During the 2014 regular season, he didn’t even dress for five games, sitting on the bench as a healthy scratch. As an undrafted free agent from NCAA division 2 school West Alabama, Butler was about as obscure a player as you could imagine.
This all changed during Super Bowl XLIX, when Butler was inserted into the lineup to replace a struggling Kyle Arrington.
Butler held his ground at first, prompting many iterations of who the hell is this guy? in living rooms throughout the country. Fast forward to the Kearse (curse?) catch: it immediately appeared that Butler was going to be thrust into infamy as the unlucky defender whose misfortune would be replayed over and over again right alongside (*gulp*) the Tyree catch. A few minutes later, Butler flipped the script. With his game sealing interception of Russell Wilson and his deliverance of absolution to the Patriots faithful, Butler was an instant hero. “The Butler Did it” lit up the twittersphere and two-bit t-shirt websites around the country, and before we knew it Butler had become a star. Endorsements, commercials, a truck from Tom Brady, you name it - through his own hard work and film preparation, Butler had ascended to stardom.
Following a honeymoon Pro Bowl season in 2015 and a second team All-Pro effort in 2016 that had culminated in yet another Super Bowl, it had seemed that Butler had settled in nicely as one of the Patriot’s defensive cornerstones. Malcolm Butler was a star, but then–all of a sudden–he wasn’t.
The trade rumors, coupled with the lucrative contract given to Stephon Gilmore, seemed to sour the relationship between Butler and the Patriots. And yet, when the regular season began, although the defense struggled as a whole, Malcolm Butler was right back in his usual spot, starting 15 games and playing for nearly 98% of the team’s defensive snaps. On February 4th, 2018–almost exactly three years after Butler’s rocket ascent–the sobering reality of the NFL’s dark side came crashing down upon him.
We all witnessed Butler sobbing on the sideline during the National Anthem, but we dismissed it as nothing more than the result of pre-game emotions, or maybe that Butler was a huge P!NK fan? By the time the defense took the field, however, there was nothing beautiful about the trauma that Butler was experiencing. He had been benched, cast to the wayside, forced to watch as Johnson Bademosi and Jordan Richards “bad-angled” away the Patriots' chance at a 6th Super Bowl title.The bench can be a humiliating place, and Butler was humiliated on uber-national television. Moreover, in his free agency pursuits - and for the rest of his life - he is going to have to answer the question why were you benched?
Although Butler’s interception in Super Bowl XLIX will live on in immortality, so too will the humiliation of Super Bowl LII. Malcolm truly did go from hero to zero … or at least, to zero defensive snaps played.
(Images Via Patriots Wire and Pats Pulpit)
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