![]() ![]() ![]() “No, man, I think the rebirth came a long time ago for me,” he said. ![]() Should we call this a football rebirth for Butler? Thank You Pittsburgh ?- Anthony Miller June 19, 2023 So far, he's made it through spring ball, even surviving what appears to be a cut at his position. “There were a lot of connections between me and the team and it all worked out,” said Butler. That’s when the Steelers knocked on the door. There, Butler gained 599 yards and scored 8 touchdowns in the first year of the revived league. Two failed stints in the CFL later, Butler finally got his chance to play professionally in 2023, drafted in the fifth round by the XFL’s St. We had a great locker room, but I just didn’t feel comfortable in the positions they were putting me in – and that was all before the injury – but just dealing with a lot of stuff and it wasn’t until I went to therapy and dealt with those emotions and things that I came out a much better person.”Īrizona served as Butler’s “mental rebirth,” but it never resulted in a single snap and Butler was waived in September, 2020, picked up by Carolina, and then Philadelphia, where Butler saw his only two games of action, with just one target. I truly lost all of my confidence when I got to Arizona. “My mental state at that time was very low and not confident at all. You just kind of roll with the punches and keep going with it, whatever that plan is for you. “I guess, maybe you could say that” Butler said, “but at the end of the day it happens. Was it the hand injury that changed the course of Butler’s career? “That’s a place where I really started to learn about myself,” said Butler.Īs soon as his pro career began, it all but closed on him after suffering an avulsion fracture in his hand during a preseason game and ended his rookie season. It is what it is.”īut back to Arizona, where the weight of doubt, pressure and a hand injury pulled Butler’s grip from the slopes at an avalanche’s speed. “When I got here he said a couple things about that, but, yeah, obviously they went a different route that year. “Oh yeah, I met with Tomlin and he said he wanted to draft me,” Butler said. Playing alongside now-New York Jets wideout Allen Lazard, Butler gained 2,015 yards and scored 16 touchdowns in his final two seasons.Įven Mike Tomlin showed interest in the 6-5 speedster. Serving in Matt Campbell’s slow tempo, tight end-heavy passing game at Iowa State, Butler, sixth all-time in receiving yards at ISU, emerged as “the featured” receiver in that offense. “I thought I should have went higher than that, to be honest,” Butler said about being the 103rd overall pick in 2019. That swirl of skepticism began swarming around Butler when he made the jump from Iowa State to the pros via a fourth-round draft pick by the Arizona Cardinals. “That s*** got in my head, man, (expletive) me right up.” People I never even heard of just telling me I wasn’t a good receiver, I was worthless,” said Butler. It’s a whole other thing when humans do it, and for Butler that public scrutiny has been a good piece of the weight strapped to the 27-year-old’s shoulders on his treacherous climb up the professional football mountain.īut who doubted Hakeem, a journeyman speedster on his seventh pro football team split between the NFL, CFL and XFL? “For me, how it was, you hear enough doubt about you, you start to believe it.”Ī skeptical search engine is one thing. That’s the first listing Google’s algorithm spits back after looking up the receiver’s name. ![]()
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