Here is the "column I wrote on your [Pro Football Hall of Fame] candidacy"  -          Bob McGinn

November 24, 2017

Safety LeRoy Butler, announced this week as a first-time semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is in rare company when it comes to defensive players schemed to stop in Super Bowl history.

As the author of probably the most in-depth look at the first 46 Super Bowls and a columnist covering the last five, my conclusion is safety Troy Polamalu might be the only player on defense that can compare to Butler when it comes to being targeted by the opposing offense.

Both the Arizona Cardinals in the 43^rd Super Bowl and the Green Bay Packers in the 45^th Super Bowl plotted ways to prevent the unpredictable Polamalu from swinging the outcome toward his Pittsburgh Steelers.

None of the offensive coaches for Arizona or Green Bay, however, characterized the containment of Polamalu as do or die. In the 32^nd Super Bowl, Broncos coach Mike Shanahan developed his entire offensive strategy around minimizing Butler.

“The whole game plan was to see if we could get LeRoy out of the run game,” the late Mike Heimerdinger, Denver’s wide receivers coach at the time, said in an interview in 2007. “Nobody had done it all year. He just had a great year. He had all kinds of sacks and turnovers and interceptions.

“LeRoy was killing people in the run game. He was always coming down from up high and becoming the eighth guy in the box and making all kinds of tackles. Mike’s (Shanahan’s) idea was to isolate LeRoy and get him out of there. He was the guy causing hell for everybody.”

At times, the Broncos flanked tight end Shannon Sharpe wide drawing Butler in man coverage before running the ball away from Butler to the weak side. At times, the tackles would go after Butler, leaving the defensive end to the tight end. At times, fullback Howard Griffith would seek out Butler and let the wide receivers block the linebacker.

“That was the game right there,” quarterback John Elway said a few months after the Super Bowl. “No one had been getting a hat on Butler. We knew someone had to be on him at all times.”

Terrell Davis, the MVP, rushed 30 times for 157 yards. Butler made a game-high nine tackles, and six were on carries by Davis for gains of 27, 2, 16, 3, 14 and 3 yards.

Without Butler’s sure, saving tackles Davis might have had 200 yards. In coverage, Elway never threw the ball once to Sharpe with Butler in coverage. Butler was matched against Sharpe 12 times as a split receiver and several other times from in-line. All five of Sharpe’s catches came against other defenders.

Butler was my choice as the Packers’ best player in that crushing 31-24 defeat.

“LeRoy Butler is an extremely talented, savvy player with a lot of experience,” Shanahan said at the time. “The focus was not to run into him when he was blitzing. If you don’t account for him you’re going to be in for a long day, which a lot of teams were during the season.”

A year earlier, Butler made seven tackles when the Packers beat New England, 35-21, in the 31^st Super Bowl.

In the second quarter, Butler ran over running back Dave Meggett on third and 7 to sack Drew Bledsoe in 3.3 seconds, forcing a punt. When the Patriots got the ball back, Butler drilled Bledsoe in the back on an incompletion before the shaken-up Bledsoe threw an interception on the next play.

The defensive star in that game was Reggie White, who had three sacks. But the ability to draw attention and make an impact in big games like the Super Bowl is one reason why Butler should be and is a legitimate candidate to be enshrined in Canton.

Last month, I ranked the Packers’ 25 most important players in the Packers’ remarkable revival over the last 25 seasons. Brett Favre was an easy choice as No. 1, and then Aaron Rodgers earned a slim nod over White as No. 2.

After that, Butler was No. 4 ahead of Clay Matthews, Ahman Green and Charles Woodson.

From the Green Bay teams of the 1990s, Favre and White have been enshrined. Certainly the next-best candidate would be Butler.

Ron Wolf, the retired general manager, recently said there wasn’t any question that Butler was the pre-eminent leader of the NFL’s top-ranked defense in 1996 despite the presence of White, safety Eugene Robinson and some other big personalities.

Just about everybody liked Butler, and his leadership transcended positional, monetary and racial lines. So keen was his desire to win that he barely could tolerate the whiners, pretty boys and goof-offs that populated the locker room.

On the field, Butler’s ability to diagnose offenses quickly and make checks just before the snap was unmatched.

“His communication during the game is incredible,” Bob Slowik, the Packers’ secondary at the time of Butler’s retirement due to a shoulder injury in July 2002, once said. “When the guy made a call he was right … he was absolutely right. He was unbelievable.”

Butler, however, might have to wait many years for enshrinement, if it happens at all. He’s going to be knocked for having been elected to just three Pro Bowls (he was an injury replacement to a fourth) even though more impressively he was a first-team choice four times on The Associated Press all-pro team.

In Butler’s favor is his inclusion on the 1990’s all-decade team and career totals of 38 interceptions, 20 ½ sacks, 13 forced fumbles and 10 recovered fumbles.

Traditionally, Hall of Fame selectors haven’t regarded safety as a prominent position. Of the 310 enshrinees, only eight were safeties and four were listed as cornerback-safeties.

The safeties (and year inducted) were Emlen Tunnell, 1967; Jack Christiansen, 1970; Larry Wilson, 1978; Yale Lary, 1979; Ken Houston, 1986; Willie Wood, 1989; Paul Krause, 1998, and Kenny Easley, 2017.

The four cornerback-safeties (and year inducted) were Mel Renfro, 1996; Ronnie Lott, 2000; Rod Woodson, 2009, and Aeneas Williams, 2014.

Besides Butler, the list of semifinalist safeties this year includes Steve Atwater (seven times a semifinalist), Brian Dawkins (two) and John Lynch (six).

Having rebuffed previous overtures to become a member of the Selection Committee, I have never participated in the voting process. Certainly I’ve talked to enough people to know that number of Pro Bowls and all-pro teams plays an integral role as a benchmark in which to categorize prospective candidates.

Before 1995, coaches and players selected the Pro Bowl teams. The Pro Bowl was an important story each year because the results had credibility.

Since then, voting by fans has been given one-third share of the ballot with the coaches and players. As a result, the Pro Bowl results have lost significant weight.

The all-pro teams generally are selected by a panel of football writers covering every team in the NFL and the league as a whole.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Pro Football Weekly has ranked the top players at each position in its magazine that previews each season. The rankings were the responsibility of Joel Buchsbaum until his death in December 2002.

Buchsbaum probably was the greatest draftnik and independent scout ever. Not only did Buchsbaum evaluate players himself, he also had high-placed sources in almost every NFL front office that helped him know the league and its players.

When I want to know how someone played during those years, Buchsbaum’s ratings mean more to me than the Pro Bowl and all-pro teams. Since Buchsbaum’s death, publisher Hub Arkush and the staff at PFW have sustained the pre-season ratings with the assistance of scouts.

To gauge Butler’s strength as a candidate, I compared his year-by-year rankings to 12 other safeties that were his contemporaries and made more than one Pro Bowl from 1987-‘10. Here’s how Buchsbaum ranked Butler among all safeties entering each season: 11^th in 1993, ninth in ’94, fourth in ’95, ninth in ’96, third in ’97, first in ’98, first in ’99, fifth in ’00 and 11^th in ’01.

Here are the rankings based on number of top-five finishes (first-place rankings in parentheses) by PFW: Brian Dawkins, eight (five); Rodney Harrison, six (none); LeRoy Butler, five (two); Carnell Lake, five (none); Tim McDonald, five (two); Steve Atwater, four (one); Darren Sharper, four (none); Adrian Wilson, four (none); Darren Woodson, four (one); John Lynch, three (none); Lawyer Milloy, three (none); Roy Williams, two (none), and Blaine Bishop, one (none).

In spring 1999, Buchsbaum wrote regarding Butler: “He’s a great leader and competitor who can run, cover, blitz and play the run. Just ask the Packers to name their defensive MVP. Butler can play near the line like a linebacker or cover a slot receiver like an extra cornerback. Makes big plays and big hits.”

In May, I was one of 12 chosen by MMQB’s Peter King to participate in an all-time NFL draft. Eleven of the 12 did their best to assemble the finest team possible.

The draft included 25 rounds and 300 players. Anyone who ever played in an NFL game, including active players, were eligible.

Here was the order of how the 24 safeties were drafted:

Second round: Ronnie Lott, 19^th overall pick.

Third round: Ed Reed, 29.

Ninth round: Emlen Tunnell, 99.

Tenth round: Ken Houston, 109; Kenny Easley, 111; Paul Krause, 116.

Eleventh round: Mel Renfro, 124; Troy Polamalu, 129.

Twelfth round: Larry Wilson, 136.

Thirteenth round: Jack Tatum, 154; Yale Lary, 156.

Fifteenth round: Cliff Harris, 174.

Sixteenth round: Willie Wood, 181; Jack Christiansen, 188; John Lynch, 190.

Seventeenth round: Donnie Shell, 198.

Nineteenth round: Joey Browner, 227.

Twenty-first round: LeRoy Butler, 247; Brian Dawkins, 249.

Twenty-second round: Bobby Dillon, 254; Steve Atwater, 263.

Twenty-third round: Rodney Harrison, 276.

Twenty-fourth round: Johnny Robinson, 278.

Twenty-fifth round: Nolan Cromwell, 293.

Drafting seventh in each round, I took Lott in the second. Given Lott’s ability to cover wide receivers, deliver crushing hits, take the ball away, lead through sheer force of personality and dominate at any secondary position, I regard him as the greatest defensive back of all time. He was the first defensive back selected.

Having covered all 195 games (179 starts) that Butler played, the other safeties that I targeted were Butler and Earl Thomas. I bided my time, figuring safeties wouldn’t go high and that Butler would be available late. Otherwise, I was prepared to take Butler as early as the 17^th round.

My fear was that Wolf, who had the second choice in each round, would beat me to Butler. Later, Wolf told me he would have taken Butler not long after I took him.

As you can see from the MMQB draft, Butler will have stiff competition. Not only is he competing with a string of terrific safeties, he’s fighting the lowly image of his position among selectors.

When it comes to intimate knowledge of all positions, defense and offense, Butler’s exceeds any player I’ve known. As for what he meant to the formidable defense in Green Bay a generation ago, just ask Mike Shanahan.

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