Report: Any Chance the Saints Will Trade for Malcolm Butler is Dead
The Saints are still interested in Malcolm Butler, but they’re leaning toward keeping their first three picks. https://t.co/yJmisB8Qrj pic.twitter.com/G32ckZ0Xps
— The MMQB (@theMMQB) April 24, 2017
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The MMQB – Whither Malcolm Butler? The Saints (picking 11, 32, 42, 76, 103 in the first three rounds) are still interested in Butler, but someone familiar with their thinking believes they are leaning toward keeping their first three picks. The Saints believe that their board between 25 and 75 has a slew of players capable of contributing immediately, with grades close to each other, and the thought of dealing one or more picks for Butler, then paying him a huge contract, is less attractive than it once seemed.
So this is it. I assume. I’m guessing. I hope. Malcolm Butler signed his $3.91 million tender. He’s under team control for one more season at least. The only team that’s shown any interest in maybe giving the Patriots a first round pick for him says the price of poker is too high. And it would appear our long national nightmare is over.
Ultimately Butler’s agent Derek “Slippin’ Jimmy” Simpson gave it a nice try, but his reach exceeded his grasp. It’s nice to try to get your client a top-of-the-market deal because you think he’s a top cornerback. But he learned the hard way that what the Patriots always preach about doing business as business is done is only approach. You have to meet reality on reality’s terms. Just because Patriots fans and certain shamelessly gushing fanboy bloggers have an emotional investment in a player is no reason for the team to pretend the CBA doesn’t exist. Or that they have to pay him before they have to pay him. Logan Ryan played out his rookie deal and cashed the hell in. James White took a deal a year before he hit the market, probably signing for less than he would’ve made in free agency, but trading dollars for security. The transvaginal mesh lawsuit attorney representing Butler thought he could get the money and the security without giving in on anything, and he was dead wrong. You live and you learn.
So what are we left with? No first round pick this year. (Until they trade Jimmy Garoppolo on draft day, mark my words.) And Butler facing an uncertain long term future. I promise you that if he ever fires his agent the way Ben Watson did to end his rookie holdout, a deal with the Patriots will get done. And the Patriots have made no hint that they won’t use the franchise tag on him for 2018. Because Belichick does not play favorites, even if it involves a hardworking, folk hero legend and his coaching bestie, Sean Payton. And everyone who took the Stephon Gilmore signing as a sign Butler was gone was dead wrong. And when I said he was here to replace Logan Ryan, I was right, as always.
The bottom line is that this means the Pats only lost one starter from their Super Bowl winning team, and upgraded his position. In the meantime, we’re about to watch Butler on one side of the field and Gilmore on the other, easily one of the top three cornerback Wonder Twins combos in all of football. There are worse fates than this.