NFL veteran Butler makes most of his time in CFL
Defensive back finds a home in Canada after years of bouncing around the NFL
There’s another Tigers tale to tell — with Crezdon Butler as the protagonist.
For the first season since 1982, when spectacular slotback Joey Walters played his final CFL game, the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ lineup includes a Clemson Tigers product who wears No. 17.
“That’s cool,” Butler, a first-year Roughrider, said with a chuckle. “I’ve got to look that up.”
“He’s a Hall of Famer here,” fellow defensive back Jovon Johnson interjected while approaching Butler, referencing Walters’ status as a Plaza of Honour member.
Butler has played against a number of future Hall of Famers since making his debut in professional football in 2010. In fact, his first NFL game was against the New England Patriots.
“I was star struck to see Tom Brady,” recalled Butler, 30, who made his NFL debut with the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 14, 2010.
“It was my rookie year, so seeing Tom Brady and seeing how he operated on film, I was a little nervous because my number could have been called to play defence. I was mostly on special teams that game, but I was one play away from playing defence.
“I was a little nervous, but I got through it.”
A fifth-round draft pick of the Steelers in 2010, Butler subsequently spent time in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals, Washington Redskins, Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle Seahawks and Detroit Lions. He had two stops in Arizona and Detroit.
Butler played in 46 NFL regular-season games. Although he bounced around the league from 2010-16, it’s worth emphasizing that the vast majority of aspiring NFLers will never play as much as a single down of professional fourdown football.
Consider, by contrast, Butler’s wealth of experiences.
In 2013, while with San Diego, he played against a Denver Broncos team that was quarterbacked by Peyton Manning.
“You see him on TV and then you hear him in a game and you’re like, ‘He really says Omaha!’ ” Butler said. “And then it’s, ‘What does that mean?’ It can mean so many different things with him.”
The most meaningful game of Butler’s NFL career was played on Nov. 15, 2015, when he suited up for Detroit against quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers.
Butler was “signed off the street,” in the words of the Detroit Free Press, the day before the game as an injury replacement. Late in the game against Green Bay, he was pressed into duty due to more injuries in the defensive backfield.
With 36 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Rodgers threw a touchdown pass to reduce Detroit’s lead to 18-16. The Packers then attempted a game-tying twopoint conversion, only to have Butler knock down a Rodgers pass that was intended for Davante Adams and give Detroit an upset victory.
“My number was called and they always say ‘next man up,’ ” Butler said. “You never know when your time is going to come and it came that play.”
How significant is that play?
“It means everything,” he said, smiling. “I have that picture hanging up in my house. I have that same jersey. That’s definitely going to be something that sticks with me for a long time.”
He never did stick with an NFL team for an extended period, but prefers to extract the positives from his myriad experiences south of the border.
“Being told that you couldn’t do something and bouncing around and going from team to team, it made me stronger,” Butler said. “Now that I’m on a team where I feel like I’m at home, I can go out there and just play football now.”
What compels him to keep playing the game in a different land?
“My drive and my (desire) to finish my career playing, not sitting on the bench or waiting for the next call at home,” Butler said before Friday’s game against the host Calgary Stampeders. “I want to be playing and I got my opportunity here.
“You can’t look at it as a step underneath the NFL, because there are some talented guys in the CFL who could play in the NFL. So you’ve got to go about it the same way that you would if you were in the NFL and just play football.
“At the end of the day, it’s about playing football. It’s not about talent level and it’s not about money. It’s about playing football.”