It's Been 7 Years Since Malcolm Butler's Super Bowl Benching, and His Explanation is Still Exactly What I Reported the Very Next Day

Boston Globe. Getty Images.

I consider myself a man who enjoys a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone. Provided that there is an actual good conspiracy to theorize about. 

To qualify as a decent conspiracy a story needs to have certain elements. Facts that don't add up. Inconsistent statements. A coverup. A plausible alternative explanation that goes against the officially accepted narrative. These factors are what make the JFK Assassination conspiracy so endlessly fascinating, and the Moon Landing was Faked theory just a bunch of bozos pointing at shadows on the lunar surface. 

And one of the most pernicious and enduring conspiracies of modern times just celebrated its seventh anniversary. It refuses to go away:

It came up when Butler was signed to the Patriots in 2022 but couldn't recover from the injuries that cost him the previous season and took a buyout. It came up when the Apple+ series The Dynasty did half an episode on it. And it especially gains traction every Super Bowl week when Butler makes the rounds on Radio Row. You can set your calendar to it:

This Super Bowl week was no exception:

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And what's the through-line in all of these? The one consistent explanation given by everyone involved that has never wavered, not even a little bit? It's exactly the one I told you mere hours after the fact:

What could Butler have done that is so egregious that the most bloodthirsty, hyper-competitive leader in the history of organized sport would put him in the Time Out chair in the Super Bowl? The answer is nothing. There is no behavior issue so bad he’d bench a starter to prove some point. Especially with a guy who’ll be shadowing wideouts somewhere else in a few months. 

Butler was at the team postgame party. He talked to a lot of people, including people I’ve heard from. He was actually not in a bad mood, which is kind of stunning given the fact he had an emotional meltdown on National TV just a few hours before.

And Butler was telling people at the party, “The coach and I just aren’t seeing eye to eye.” Which more or less sheds light on the aforementioned “attitudes and frustrations.” …

Butler wasn’t listed on the injury report and put on the punt coverage unit because he was over the illness. Physically, he was ready to go. Physically. It’s the other part of his game – the part between his earholes – that coaches had issues with.

I’m told that Butler “was not in the right frame of mind.” That during practices in Minneapolis he was being belligerent,  “snapping” at his coaches. And after a bad week of prep, when game day came around Belichick simply didn’t believe his starting corner was in the headspace to make the calls, adjustments and post-snap reads against the Eagles RPO. At least not to the extent he trusted Eric Rowe and Johnson Bademosi.

To be clear, this is not coming from the coaching staff. It’s not spin to discredit Malcolm Go and justify some crazy, indefensible “hunch” by the head coach. The coaches, players and fans of the team love Butler. But this is coming from people with first hand knowledge. It is the rationale behind benching Butler on defense while putting him on special teams. And the only explanation that makes sense. What else could it be?

This is where an arrogant, cocksure, supremely confident man might add, "Right again, Old Balls." But I'll let you say that. 

The fact is the narrative hasn't changed one iota since I wrote this with a broken heart and a crippling hangover on February the 6th, in the Year of Our Lord 2018. It's been investigated as much as JFK. Everyone even remotely involved has been asked and re-asked. A documentary crew that was bound and determined to make Bill Belichick look like he was CEO of a company that dumped toxic waste into an orphanage couldn't dig up another thing. Aside from rumors with absolutely zero corroborating evidence, the most accurate version of the story is the one I burped into my keyboard while wearing sweatpants and sipping off the Hair o' the Dog the morning after the game that crushed my soul because it was the Patriots Dynasty's . Rollo Tomassi. The One That Got Away.

But after seven years of being right about this, I'm under no illusions it's going to go away. Butler and his 2017 teammates will be asked about it until the sun goes nova. And no amount of questioning, interrogation, threats, waterboarding, or truth serum will get him to change his answer from the one I told you in real time. But go ahead, keep digging. I moved on that day and never looked back.