The Curious Case Of Malcolm Butler

When you see Malcolm Butler facing at a ninety-degree angle to his receiver, slightly crouched and looking for a fight like Rumble McSkirmish in a football helmet, he is in his comfort zone.

No, not zone coverage, even though he's excellent in that capacity, but the happy place that all cornerbacks strive to find, a coverage technique that fits their athleticism, speed and natural movement.  Some corners find it in punking receivers off the line and riding in their hip pocket through the route, while others are more comfortable playing Farmer Jones in working a certain section of the field, while still others combine techniques to reach coverage nirvana.

Butler belongs to the latter, as he fuses press-man and bail techniques to arrive at a hybrid coverage known as "Press Bail" or more commonly known to those in the profession as "Catch-man".

As we already know, "Press-man" is when a corner is right up in the receiver's face, exchanging punches at the snap of the ball and jostling with the receiver through his route progression, while the "Bail" technique presents the cornerback at seven to eight yards off the line of scrimmage, "catching" the route as it develops and applying a natural barrier to the receiver snapping off his break on a standard 5-step-drop route.

The corner sets up in a "press" look, then backs off and angling his body to face the linebackers, allowing him to shuffle his feet rather than back peddling and making it so that his hips are already open and poised to either pivot and run with the receiver downfield or to plant and drive on the ball if the route is cut off, the idea being to allow the receiver the sideline, where Butler can use it as a defacto helper over the top.

So...what's the point?

Standing just north of a garden gnome but with the suddenness and springs of a Jack-in-the-box, Butler has been covering receivers in the National Football League on a full-time basis since his heroic fourth quarter in Super Bowl 49, when he covered a much taller Jermaine Kearse for much of the second half, then stepped in front of Ricardo Lockett to seal the championship with the greatest interception in football history.

Ever since, Butler has been seen as the golden child in the Patriots' secondary, and has been a top-rated corner by just about every football publication in existence - but suddenly, it seems Butler's technique is in question, having given up big plays along the sideline, one where it looked like he wasn't even trying, and a couple of bad touchdowns.

For his part, Butler is owning the struggles and has vowed that he has higher standards than what we've seen thus far in preseason, but the thing is, it has nothing to do with technique as the West Alabama product is technically sound.

Against the Texans, Butler had two plays that on first glance appears as if he had lapses in concentration, but on the deep sideline grab by Bruce Ellington, replays show him latching onto Butler's jersey as the ball was approaching and Butler was about to make the pivot to look for the ball, giving the ball a split second to reach Ellington, and Butler had no play, as seen in sequence to the left and below..

...where we see Butler in perfect "Catch-man" technique, bailing to the inside, then in perfect position while tracking the ball, and then with Ellington with a handful of Butler's jersey.

But on the touchdown pass to Jalen Strong, Butler looked to be expecting a fade to the corner and was playing straight bail to the outside, and when Strong suddenly cut to the inside, Butler lost his footing, resulting in an easy six.

There is no denying that Malcolm Butler has everything it takes to be a cornerback in the National Football League.  He can play press-man, off-man and zone in halves, quarters or anyway you want to play it.  But he's not a shut down guy that can play on an island because he's not consistent with his jam at the line of scrimmage, particularly against small, shifty receivers.

And therein lies the issue.  He's an aggressive corner, that can't consistently lock onto receivers with quick moves off the line, and he's simply not big enough to handle the bigger receivers on the boundary if they take away his outside leverage.  That's a problem in the slot as well, because it is usually populated by fleet-footed receivers.

In fact, according to research at Pro Football Focus, Butler allows an opposing passer rating of 128.5 when manning the slot, as opposed to dime corner Justin Coleman (39.5) and Safety Patrick Chung (87.8) in the Big Nickel role.  Even so, Butler was the publication's fifth-best corner in 2016, illustrating just how good he is on the perimeter.

Butler is at his best, elite even, at off-man coverages.  In off-man, he can recover quickly if a receiver gives him a double move or a feign to the inside, and it also helps him against bigger receivers as he can play bail technique and use the sidelines as blind side help, allows him to see the pattern unfold in front of him, and gives him plenty of room to plant his foot and react to a ball in front of him...

...because what sets Butler apart is his recognition and closing burst, things that he can't necessarily use in press-man.

So what Butler is, is an off-man, bail-technique corner - a technique that obviously works well for him on the outside, where the Patriots also have Stephon Gilmore and Eric Rowe, both standing 6' 1" and both heavily skilled as boundary corners.  What New England doesn't have is an effective slot corner, as their most dependable one, Logan Ryan, left in free agency.

How much of an impact that has and how the Patriots choose to handle it remains to be seen, whether it means keeping Coleman around, promoting second-year corner Jonathan Jones to the 53-man roster, or simply playing the in Big Nickel the majority of the time - but the slot is the one unknown in a secondary full of talent, so watch for Patriots' opponents to target whoever's playing there until it's proven they have that question answered.