{"id":38605,"date":"2018-03-13T18:10:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T22:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnfl.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=38605"},"modified":"2018-03-13T18:10:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T22:10:54","slug":"malcolm-butler-signs-titans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2018\/03\/13\/malcolm-butler-signs-titans\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Tennessee Titans to Sign Malcolm Butler to Multi-Year Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was inevitable after Super Bowl LII, but <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/B\/ButlMa01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Malcolm Butler<\/a><\/strong>&#8216;s tenure in New England is officially over. Butler will sign a five-year, $61 million contract with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/titans\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tennessee Titans<\/a> at the onset of free agency according\u00a0to NFL media insider <strong>Ian Rapoport<\/strong>. Butler has spent the last four seasons on the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/patriots\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New England Patriots<\/a> after going undrafted out of West Alabama.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Titans?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Titans<\/a> are signing CB Malcolm Butler on a 5-year contract worth more than $61M with more than $30M guaranteed, source said. Wow.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RapSheet\/status\/973677092410920963?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 13, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Report: Malcolm Butler to Sign Five-Year, $61 Million Deal With Tennessee Titans<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Nobody really knew Butler\u2019s value going into free agency. After spending most of his rookie season at the bottom of the Patriots depth chart, Butler became an overnight superstar after recording the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=U7rPIg7ZNQ8\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> game-winning interception<\/a> against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/nfl-teams\/seahawks\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Seattle Seahawks<\/a> in Super Bowl XLIX.<\/p>\n<p>Butler built on that interception to be the Patriots top cornerback in 2015 and 2016. The former undrafted free agent showed he was more than a one-play wonder and established himself as one of the better cornerbacks in the league. Butler earned Pro Bowl nods in both seasons and was voted Second-Team All-Pro in 2016. His stellar play was a large factor in shutting down the high-powered Atlanta Falcons offense in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>However, Butler\u2019s value began to fall in 2017. New England gave the largest defensive contract in team history to former Buffalo Bill <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/G\/GilmSt00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephon Gilmore<\/a><\/strong>. He was inconsistent in the regular season and didn&#8217;t play up to his previous standards. His stock reached an all-time low after getting benched for Super Bowl LII. Butler didn&#8217;t see a snap despite playing over 98 percent of the regular season defensive snaps.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not a surprise to see the former undrafted free agent leave New England for greener pastures. While it wasn\u2019t the end he was hoping for, there\u2019s no doubt that Butler has come a long way since entering the league. Butler famously worked at a Popeye\u2019s fast food restaurant, and it\u2019s safe to say that he\u2019ll be making more now than he was then.<\/p>\n<p>The big question with Butler going forward is what type of player is he? Is he the borderline star from 2015 and 2016, or is he the average and streaky cornerback from 2017? His new team took a gamble on the former, and only time will tell if that was the right bet.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"EyW4k7olTYROyIkw_m_83w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/865179298\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'EyW4k7olTYROyIkw_m_83w',sig:'AgOKU1GN_-lFg9oYazw7Ufi0LdbIjmAJrVRQDA2wK00=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'865179298',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malcolm Butler surprisingly didn&#8217;t play a single snap in Super Bowl LII and it pretty much all but assured that he was going to sign with a team other than the New England Patriots in free agency. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":38701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,5],"tags":[61,1414,38,40,1608],"class_list":["post-38605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-patriots","tag-football","tag-malcolm-butler","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"John Bava","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}