{"id":58249,"date":"2018-02-07T07:06:48","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T07:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=58249"},"modified":"2018-02-07T07:06:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T07:06:48","slug":"malcolm-butler-denies-wrongdoing-led-to-super-bowl-benching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/malcolm-butler-denies-wrongdoing-led-to-super-bowl-benching.html","title":{"rendered":"Malcolm Butler denies wrongdoing led to Super Bowl benching"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt\"><strong><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;color: #000000\">Malcolm Butler denies wrongdoing led to Super Bowl benching<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">New England Patriots defensive back Malcolm Butler has broken his silence over being benched for Sunday&#8217;s Super Bowl.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">In a statement issued Tuesday on Instagram, Butler denied reports that his actions before the game caused Patriots coach Bill Belichick not to play him as a disciplinary measure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Butler said he &#8220;would never do anything to hurt my teams&#8217; chances of winning a game, including this year&#8217;s Super Bowl where I visited with my family every night. During Super Bowl week I never attended any concert, missed curfew, or participated (sic) any of the ridiculous activities being reported. They are not only false, but hurtful, to me and my family.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Among the more than 24,000 likes on the post was one from Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. The five-time Super Bowl winning quarterback also commented: &#8220;Love you Malcolm. You are an incredible player and teammate and friend. Always!!!!!!&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Butler started every game for the Patriots during the regular season and in the playoffs, but did not play in the Super Bowl.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">The Patriots lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 41-33, in a game in which its defense widely was criticized for not being able to stop the Eagles, including allowing the game&#8217;s last nine points on two drives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">There has been widespread speculation that Belichick benched Butler because of an off-field issue, although the coach would not expand on his reasoning after the game. The next day, he again declined to give specifics but said &#8221;there are a lot of things that go into that.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Butler, an unrestricted free agent this offseason, was seen in tears on the sideline before kickoff and left the locker room quickly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">\u201cI ain\u2019t got nothing to say,\u201d Butler said at the time. Later, he told ESPN: \u201cThey gave up on me\u201d and \u201cI could have changed that game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 14pt;color: #000000\">Belichick said Monday: &#8220;I respect Malcolm&#8217;s competitiveness, and I&#8217;m sure that he felt like he could have helped. I&#8217;m sure other players felt the same way.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 8pt\">Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2018\/02\/06\/malcolm-butler-denies-wrongdoing-led-super-bowl-benching\/312818002\/<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/sports\/malcolm-butler-denies-wrongdoing-led-to-super-bowl-benching.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malcolm Butler denies wrongdoing led to Super Bowl benching New England Patriots defensive back Malcolm Butler has broken his silence over being benched for Sunday&#8217;s Super Bowl. In a statement issued Tuesday on Instagram, Butler denied reports that his actions before the game caused Patriots coach Bill Belichick not to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":58255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[118578,110916,80047,110907],"class_list":["post-58249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-malcolm-butler-denies-wrongdoing-led-to-super-bowl-benching","tag-sports-breaking-news","tag-sports-news-and-live-results","tag-usa-today-sports-weekly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}