Each spring, before the chaotic aftermath of the NFL Draft even begins, Bill Belichick begins making round after round of phone calls to dozens of players that have been prioritized as key undrafted free agent targets. As the draft concludes and Belichick secures commitments, he relays the same sentiment to each signed player:
It doesn’t matter how you got here.
For interior defensive lineman Adam Butler — a fifth-year senior from Vanderbilt — that’s precisely how it went.
“I had other offers, maybe with a little more money, but I could tell they were blowing smoke,” Butler told ESPN’s Mike Reiss in 2017.