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Hakeem Butler not playing

I guess I should have chosen my words a bit more carefully. At this point, maybe he is not NFL level, but he may be down the road. I guess I'm just surprised he hasn't played a bit more since it is the pre-season where almost everyone plays, including many that won't even make the roster.
 
ZB4CY said:
Don't worry, I got flamed for saying he may not make the Cardinal roster...
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I missed that, but it's pretty unusual for fourth round picks to get cut or not make the 53. There's nothing in a rookie contract that guarantees a player will make the roster but generally teams don't give up on draft picks that quickly.

Also, he's taken part in two preseason games (one of which he played a majority of snaps in). And the camp reports are about what we expected - highlight catches mixed with drops. He's a high ceiling project. He's buried on the depth chart but the Cardinals are going to play in a lot of five wide sets so it figures that they'll keep six or seven on the active roster.

The OP said maybe he isn't NFL caliber. Change that to NFL ready right now and I might agree with you. And FWIW, most rookie WRs aren't major contributors right away. It's one of the most difficult positions to transition from the college game to the pro game.
 
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jbindm said:
I missed that, but it's pretty unusual for fourth round picks to get cut or not make the 53. There's nothing in a rookie contract that guarantees a player will make the roster but generally teams don't give up on draft picks that quickly.

Also, he's taken part in two preseason games (one of which he played a majority of snaps in). And the camp reports are about what we expected - highlight catches mixed with drops. He's a high ceiling project. He's buried on the depth chart but the Cardinals are going to play in a lot of five wide sets so it figures that they'll keep six or seven on the active roster.

The OP said maybe he isn't NFL caliber. Change that to NFL ready right now and I might agree with you. And FWIW, most rookie WRs aren't major contributors right away. It's one of the most difficult positions to transition from the college game to the pro game.
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Agreed, more than $800,000 in guaranteed money (and the draft pick) means he'll most likely make the practice squad at least. But selfishly I'm fine with him playing somewhere else (like KC for example)...
 
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I didn't see much written about Hakeem other than he had some work to do to be ready to contribute. While we all understand that Hakeem has drop issues, I don't think many people get just how much of an issue it is/was.

On the negative side, his drop rate as a Jr. at ISU would likely be worse than anyone in the NFL for guys that get some minimum number of targets.

On the positive side, he's a guy that has made massive improvements every year, and there are some great examples of guys getting into the league and overcoming drops. Andre Johnson is a good example that I think is similar to Hakeem. Hakeem has a good attitude, is willing to work, and is a team guy. He will be fine. While we see WRs come in and make a quick impact, the conventional wisdom that WRs make a big jump in year 3 still seems to hold true more often than not.
 
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CYdTracked said:
Butler may eventually find a role in the NFL but he probably would not have hurt his draft stock by coming back and having a huge season while cutting down on the drops.
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Well sure, coming back to have a huge season and cutting down on drops would have been great for him.

But what if he didn't have a huge season? What if he didn't fix his drops issue? What if he got injured?
 
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spierceisu said:
I checked the stats and Hakeem Butler has only played in 1 of the 2 games and it looks like the last one must have been very late. He has no catches so far. I am assuming he is just not NFL caliber since he is playing on a team that is not very good and he is still not even playing in the pre-season. I wonder if most of the issue is that he has too many drops. Dropping easy catches was definitely an issue at ISU for him.
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Did you actually read the box scores?
He had one catch on one target in game one
He had no catch on one target in game two

Nothing impressive but he did play in both games and had one catch.
 
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jbindm said:
I missed that, but it's pretty unusual for fourth round picks to get cut or not make the 53. There's nothing in a rookie contract that guarantees a player will make the roster but generally teams don't give up on draft picks that quickly.

Also, he's taken part in two preseason games (one of which he played a majority of snaps in). And the camp reports are about what we expected - highlight catches mixed with drops. He's a high ceiling project. He's buried on the depth chart but the Cardinals are going to play in a lot of five wide sets so it figures that they'll keep six or seven on the active roster.

The OP said maybe he isn't NFL caliber. Change that to NFL ready right now and I might agree with you. And FWIW, most rookie WRs aren't major contributors right away. It's one of the most difficult positions to transition from the college game to the pro game.
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Yeah, I agree with you on the 4th rounder thing. You rarely see them NOT make it.

I took this from The Athletic article a couple days ago:

"WR (7) Larry Fitzgerald, Christian Kirk, Andy Isabella, Hakeem Butler, KeeSean Johnson, Damiere Byrd, Trent Sherfield"

This guy probably knows better than anyone else, too. Hope he does make it!
 
IASTATE07 said:
No, you weren't.
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Shh.

Maybe not flamed, but people thought I was a little off with that comment.

He hasn't had a 'great' camp by any means. I could see him being stashed on the practice squad.. I don't think that's too far fetched.

Playing time will probably diminish for this 3rd pre-season game as most starters play the 1st half. He's got to show it in camp to be able to show it in a game.
 
In their game last week, the announcers said that Arizona was keeping or needed 7-8 receivers, they need that many to run their offense. They said Butler was making the hard catches, but still dropping the easy ones. I watched the game last night off and on, the only time I saw Butler on the field was in the last couple of series, and they never throw his way.
Generally 4th round picks make the roster, but not always. Butler has an opportunity in Arizona, its up to him to make it work.
 
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ZB4CY said:
Shh.

Maybe not flamed, but people thought I was a little off with that comment.

He hasn't had a 'great' camp by any means. I could see him being stashed on the practice squad.. I don't think that's too far fetched.

Playing time will probably diminish for this 3rd pre-season game as most starters play the 1st half. He's got to show it in camp to be able to show it in a game.
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Like 3 whole people disagreed with you.
 
spierceisu said:
I checked the stats and Hakeem Butler has only played in 1 of the 2 games and it looks like the last one must have been very late. He has no catches so far. I am assuming he is just not NFL caliber since he is playing on a team that is not very good and he is still not even playing in the pre-season. I wonder if most of the issue is that he has too many drops. Dropping easy catches was definitely an issue at ISU for him.
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What is wrong with you?
 
CloneinWDSM said:
It’s almost like NFL teams know what they are doing. Everyone was freaking out when he wasn’t taken in the top two rounds.

Make sense now?
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So nobody taken before him in the first three rounds is struggling? For all the work that teams put into it the draft is ultimately guesswork. If any team had cracked the code by now we'd know.
 
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