Only a few days before his improbable Super Bowl-saving interception, Malcolm Butler struggled in practice defending the exact same play.
Bill Belichick lit into the undrafted rookie cornerback after New England’s scout-team offense beat him all too easily for a 5-yard touchdown.
The play was a rub route that the Patriots noticed the Seattle Seahawks went to again and again in must-have situations near the goal line. One receiver set a pick by driving his defender backward. The other took advantage of the free space by running a slant underneath.
Suspecting that Seattle would go back to this concept during Super Bowl XLIX, New England devoted an unusual amount of time preparing to stop it. Butler drew Belichick’s ire for trailing behind the slanting receiver and allowing too much separation rather than fighting over the pick aggressively like he had been taught.
“If you see that formation, you can’t give ground,” Belichick barked at Butler. “You’ve got to be ready to jump that.”
That scolding was still fresh in Butler’s mind as he sprinted onto the field with less than a minute left in Super Bowl XLIX and the Seahawks just a yard shy of a go-ahead touchdown. Butler quickly recognized Seattle’s formation from practice and guessed what might be coming, paving the way for the defining moment of his career, the play that 10 years later remains among the greatest in Super Bowl history.
Anticipating the rub route ahead of time let New England’s cornerbacks switch their second-half matchups to play to their strengths. That meant big, physical Brandon Browner using his 6-foot-4 frame to jam Seattle’s Jermaine Kearse at the line of scrimmage and prevent him from setting the pick. And that meant the quick, ball-hawking Butler jumping Ricardo Lockette’s slant route and trying to make a play.
“Everyone knows you’re supposed to run the football from the 1-yard line,” Butler recently told Yahoo Sports, “but my mindset was if they threw it, their ass was in trouble.”
What happened next turned Butler into an unlikely Super Bowl hero and an overnight celebrity. Browner stonewalled Kearse. Butler beat Lockette to the ball. The interception heard round the world secured New England’s 28-24 victory and reignited the Patriots’ dynasty.
“Life changed fast,” Butler said.
Not even Butler saw that coming.
‘Malcolm, I can run faster than that in my church shoes!’
The story of one of the most remarkable plays in Super Bowl history begins where you’d least expect. You have to start in the back of a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen in Butler’s hometown of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
This is where Butler took a minimum-wage job sweeping floors, washing dishes, taking orders and frying chicken. He crash-landed here in 2010 after not producing the grades he needed in high school to take advantage of his Division I talent and then squandering the chance for a fresh start at Hinds Community College.
Hinds football coach Gene Berry kicked Butler off the team for disciplinary reasons five games into his freshman season. Conflicting reports have blamed Butler’s banishment on an arrest on a misdemeanor drug charge or on a verbal altercation with a campus police officer.
The heave-ho from junior college was Butler’s wake-up call, a reminder to never again take his opportunities for granted. He apologized in person to Berry, trained diligently even though he had no clear path forward in football and enrolled in summer classes at Alcorn State so he wouldn’t fall academically behind.
Les “Showtime” Lemons was Butler’s teammate at Vicksburg High and his roommate after both enrolled at Hinds. Whenever Lemons saw Butler during his time away from football, he recalls his friend “always working, always running hills or lifting weights, always staying ready.”
When the Hinds football coaches offered a second chance in 2011, Butler seized it. He picked off three passes as a sophomore, broke up 12 others and earned the chance to continue his football career at Division II West Alabama.
“I started doing what was right to get me an opportunity to get a shot in the NFL,” Butler said. “A lot of players got in trouble on their way to the NFL and did not learn their lesson, but I’m lucky to be one of those guys that did.”
Over the next two years, Butler piled up accolades at West Alabama and caught the attention of Tuscaloosa-area trainer Johnny Jackson with his all-out effort. After seeing Butler pop up off the dirt and chase down a receiver just shy of the goal line, Jackson invited the corner to train with him for the 2014 NFL Draft. Jackson chuckles as he describes Butler pulling up to his no-frills storefront gym for the first time in a beat-up green Cadillac, a Black & Mild cigar hanging from his mouth.
Struck by Butler’s agility and “cat-like reflexes,” Jackson became convinced the senior corner would have been perceived as a surefire draft pick had he played for Alabama rather than West Alabama. Jackson recommended Butler to Derek Simpson, an Alabama-based attorney who had recently become an NFL-certified player agent. Those two then sweet-talked friends at Alabama into letting Butler showcase his talents at the Crimson Tide’s pro day.
A strong workout might have vaulted Butler into late-round consideration or at least helped him secure a contract as an undrafted free agent. Butler instead bombed his audition in front of representatives of all 32 NFL teams, measuring at more than an inch below his listed height of 5-foot-11 and running the 40-yard dash in a lackluster 4.62 seconds.
In an instant, Simpson’ hopes began to flicker that Butler could be his first client to sign an NFL contract. Simpson blurted out in frustration, “Malcolm, I can run faster than that in my church shoes!”
Two mornings later, Jackson drove Butler to North Alabama to try for redemption at that school’s pro day. Butler stepped up to the starting line, only to be turned away by the NFL scouts who were there. They had made up their mind that Butler wasn’t NFL material. They said they had no interest in seeing him do another workout.
“You should have seen the look on his face,” Jackson said. “It crushed him.”
When they climbed in the car to head home, Butler told Jackson he was done with football. At the time, it seemed football might be finished with him too.
“Nothing is an anchor around the neck of a draft prospect like a slow 40,” Simpson said. “It’s so hard to overcome.”
As the NFL Draft approached, the damage inflicted by Butler’s dreadful pro day became clear. Scouts who had shown interest in Butler after his senior season stopped returning Simpson’s calls and emails.
“I still believed in Malcolm,” Simpson said.
But did anyone else?
‘There is no plan B’
One spring night in 2014, New England Patriots defensive backs coach Josh Boyer sat at his office desk studying video clips of cornerbacks unlikely to be selected in that April’s NFL Draft. Boyer hoped to compile a list of undervalued players who showed promise, players to target as priority undrafted free agents.
The cornerback who intrigued Boyer most was one that Patriots regional scout Frantzy Jourdain had put on the team’s radar. Jourdain scouted Butler at West Alabama and recommended the former Popeyes batter cook to the Patriots.
As Boyer analyzed Butler as a prospect, he jotted down observations in a notebook praising the young corner’s physicality, burst and knack for playing bigger than his size and making plays on the ball. Next to the phrase “good burst” Boyer put a star for emphasis.
Butler’s plodding 40-yard dash time didn’t scare off Boyer because it didn’t match the playing speed the cornerback flashed on film. Boyer remembers walking down the hall to show three clips of Butler to fellow Patriots position coach Brian Flores.
“There’s no way this guy runs a 4.6. Am I crazy?” Boyer asked.
“Yeah, that’s not a 4.6,” Flores replied.
When Butler went undrafted as expected, Boyer pushed for the Patriots to snatch him up as a priority free agent. Team executives were reluctant, noting that the Patriots had already used a sixth-round draft pick on a corner and had only a limited pool of signing bonus money to offer undrafted free agents.
Exasperated but determined, Boyer went directly to Bill Belichick and again vouched for Butler, arguing, “If we offer him even a $100 signing bonus, we can get him.” Belichick agreed to fly Butler in for a tryout at the Patriots’ upcoming rookie minicamp.
Simpson was sitting at his dining table in Huntsville, Alabama, when Boyer called and asked if Butler was still available. Not wanting to admit that Butler had no other suitors, Simpson bluffed and told Boyer, “We’re evaluating our options.”
When he hung up the phone, Simpson called Butler and spoke candidly.
“This is your one chance,” Simpson said. “I’m telling you, there is no plan B. If you get cut from the Patriots, we’re back at square one, so you have to do everything you can to take advantage of this opportunity.”
The flight to Massachusetts, Butler said, was just his second time traveling by plane. He arrived with the mindset that he wasn’t returning home to Mississippi unless it was to visit.
“You’ve got to have confidence and you’ve got to believe in yourself,” Butler said. “Your mindset is powerful.”
Butler “wasn’t a world beater” during his tryout, according to Boyer, but he shaved more than a tenth of a second off his previous 40-yard dash time and made just enough plays for the Patriots to retain him as an undrafted free agent. Then during offseason workouts and training camp, Butler ascended from afterthought, to long shot, to feel-good story as he flashed the promise that persuaded Boyer to stick his neck out for him.
“Scrap” was what Butler’s teammates nicknamed him because he was always competing and always around the ball. One day, he would botch his assignment on a certain coverage, only to recover quickly enough to deflect away a pass. The next day, he would make a diving interception, only to draw the wrath of the coaches for prematurely celebrating and forgetting the play was still live since he hadn’t been touched.
Jackson remembers Butler calling him the first time he picked off Tom Brady during practice.
“I got him!” Butler screamed into the phone. “I finally got his ass today!”
Another time, Simpson pumped Butler for information and discovered that Belichick had given the rookie corner a meaningful compliment. While emphasizing that where you were drafted or if you were drafted has no bearing on whether you make the roster, Belichick told his players, “In fact, there’s a player here from West Alabama who might be the best undrafted free agent I’ve had in my coaching career.”
Butler told Simpson that he scanned the Patriots’ roster afterward and confirmed he was the only player from West Alabama.
Replied Simpson with a laugh, “I know you’re the only one from West Alabama! He was talking about you!”
When New England trimmed its roster from 90 to 53 at the end of training camp, Butler was not among the cuts. The Patriots felt that Butler possessed a lot of the traits they sought in a corner, from his physicality, to his competitiveness, to the chip on his shoulder.
“The idea was to develop him,” Boyer said. “We really thought there was the potential for this guy to be a good, good corner for us in a year or two.”
As a rookie, Butler was the last cornerback on a depth chart that included Darrelle Revis, Brandon Browner, Kyle Arrington and Logan Ryan. He logged a mere 184 regular-season snaps and didn’t play a defensive snap in nine of 16 games
There was no reason to believe the Patriots would call on Butler in a Super Bowl, but, he says proudly, “When my opportunity came, I was ready.”
Trial by fire
A trial by fire for Butler was not part of New England’s original Super Bowl XLIX game plan. The rookie entered the game on defense midway through the third quarter only because the Patriots were desperate to find an answer for the size and length of unheralded Seattle receiver Chris Matthews on vertical routes.
The 6-foot-5, 218-pound Matthews had beaten Arrington for an 11-yard touchdown just before halftime and for two other completions of 44 and 45 yards. As a result, the New England staff made the game-saving adjustment to bench Arrington, to switch Browner onto Matthews and to call on Butler to shadow Kearse.
Boyer trusted Butler because he had practiced well leading up to the Super Bowl and because the Patriots’ man-to-man-heavy game plan wasn’t very complex. And yet when Butler matched up with Kearse for the first time, Boyer also remembers thinking, “Man, we just put an undrafted rookie into the biggest game of the year.”
The bet on Butler initially hit big when Seattle tested Butler and came up empty. He broke up two deep balls intended for Kearse, one on a key third down late in the third quarter and the other early in Seattle’s final drive of the game.
Butler nearly delivered another massive play with just over a minute to go when he leaped to deflect a perfectly floated right-sideline pass intended for Kearse. The ricochet pinballed off of every part of Kearse’s body before somehow landing softly in his hands as he lay flat on his back, a 33-yard gain that set up Seattle with first-and-goal from the 5.
To Patriots diehards, Kearse’s catch was like reliving David Tyree’s miracle all over again. The Seahawks were poised to win their second consecutive Super Bowl. A devastated Butler walked to the sideline and yanked off his chinstrap.
Butler wasn’t even supposed to be involved in the game’s decisive play until Seattle opted for a three-receiver formation and New England countered by inserting a third cornerback.
“Flo, send Malcolm!” Boyer radioed to Flores on the sideline.
“Malcolm, go!” Flores famously yelled to Butler.
As Butler stared into Seattle’s backfield before the snap, he spotted Russell Wilson’s eyes darting in his direction even as the quarterback’s head remained still. That was a giveaway to Butler that the Seahawks really were going to risk passing on second-and-goal from the 1 rather than handing the ball to Marshawn Lynch.
“We had a lot of great corners on that team,” Boyer said, “but honestly, in that situation, Malcolm was probably the guy you wanted. He was always making plays on the ball.”
To say that Butler’s life changed in a blink of an eye after his interception is the understatement of understatements.
Hours after his Super Bowl-saving interception, Butler joined rapper Rick Ross on stage during his performance at the Patriots’ boozy postgame bash at their team hotel. The next morning, on little to no sleep, Butler made a series of appearances on everything from “SportsCenter,” to “Good Morning America” to “The Today Show.”
Butler left Glendale, Arizona, on a private jet to Disneyland, then hosted a velvet-rope party at a Las Vegas rooftop nightclub. Days later, he mingled with music royalty at the Grammys, traded phone numbers with Jamie Foxx and presented the award for the year’s best rock album alongside actor Josh Duhamel and Patriots teammate Julian Edelman.
When Duhamel went to open the envelope, Butler theatrically snatched it from his hands.
“Once again, another interception by Malcolm,” a smiling Edelman quipped.
For Butler, the spoils of fame didn’t end there. He sat courtside at a Celtics game next to Patriots owner Robert Kraft and received a standing ovation. His hometown of Vicksburg proclaimed Feb. 21 Malcolm Butler Day and threw him a parade. Tom Brady gifted him the brand-new red Chevy truck that was the quarterback’s prize for winning the Super Bowl MVP award.
There was no privacy for Butler even when he returned to his apartment near Gillette Stadium. So many Sharpie- and iPhone-wielding strangers bombarded him with requests for autographs and selfies that he could barely buy groceries or go out for a meal.
“It was, ‘Can you sign this and sign that?'” Butler said. “I was the type of guy who would do it, but that definitely let me know my life had changed.”
Where is Malcolm Butler now?
NFL history is littered with Super Bowl heroes who didn’t stick, unsung players who had their best games on the biggest stage but fizzled out quickly thereafter.
Washington running back Timmy Smith got his only start of his career in Super Bowl XXII and rushed for a Super Bowl record 204 yards in a 42-10 shellacking of Denver. Dallas cornerback Larry Brown’s two second-half interceptions against Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XXX were more than he tallied the rest of his NFL career. Tyree never recorded another reception in the NFL after his helmet catch against the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
Butler, to his credit, did not want to be another one-hit wonder. He told Boyer shortly after his Super Bowl interception, “I don’t want that one play to define me.”
Once his autograph signings and media appearances at last began to wind down, Butler returned to Tuscaloosa and began training with Jackson again. He received a jolt of motivation from Belichick, who reminded Butler that every minute he spent celebrating was one the other 31 teams across the NFL were putting in extra work.
“They’re all going to try to throw the ball right over the Super Bowl hero’s head,” Butler recalls Belichick telling him.
“That made my hair stand up on my body,” Butler now admits.
The version of Butler who returned to the Patriots for training camp in 2015 possessed the same mentality as he had the previous year when he was a long shot to make the roster. Humble and driven, Butler started for the next three seasons, earned All-Pro honors in 2016 and helped the Patriots win another Super Bowl that season.
Butler’s tenure in New England ended mysteriously when he went from playing 97.8% of his team’s regular-season snaps on defense to zero in the Patriots’ 41-33 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII. A tightlipped Belichick labeled it a “coach’s decision” that night. Kraft revealed a bit more last year in an episode of the Apple TV series, “The Dynasty.”
“What has been told to me is that there was something personal going on between Bill and Malcolm that was not football related,” Kraft said.
When asked by Yahoo Sports if he’s ready to explain his side, Butler went uncharacteristically quiet. All he is willing to divulge is that Belichick is still like a “second dad” to him and that they remain on good terms.
“When me and Bill Belichick see each other, we smile and we hug each other,” Butler said. “If you want to ask him, call him. That’s one thing you’re not going to get out of me.”
Unable to reach a contract extension with the Patriots after that Super Bowl, Butler instead signed a five-year, $61 million deal with the Tennessee Titans in March 2018. He played three seasons in Tennessee and had brief stints in Arizona and back in New England. Last March, three years removed from his last NFL snap, Butler announced his retirement.
Since his last professional game, Butler has generated all sorts of headlines, some positive, some regrettable. He has served as a volunteer coach for a Houston-area high school. He has returned to Gillette Stadium as the “Keeper of the Light” for a game against Seattle. He has been arrested and charged with driving under the influence. He has expressed interest in pursuing anything from coaching to stand-up comedy.
Ten years removed from his Super Bowl-clinching interception and now living in the Houston suburbs, Butler still gets asked about his defining play all the time. The most common question, he says, is whether he’s grateful Seattle threw the ball from the 1-yard line instead of allowing one of the NFLs best running backs to try to punch it across the goal line.
“I’m glad they threw it,” Butler said. “What did you think I was going to say?”