The Crane Pool Forum

My former counselor was a big, big guy. He had been a linebacker at Duke, and during our conversation, it came to pass that he was telling me about his aspirations to play pro football being dashed, ultimately turning him on the career path of psychology. I must've said something about how long a shot it was, because he got a little defensive and asked me why I thought that. I was a little embarrassed sharing my football opinions with an actual football guy when I've gone a generation without paying much attention to the game. I sputtered something about, "Well you'd probably have to switch to defensive end because of your height."

He seemed something like 6'5" to 6'7" to me. Certainly at least 6'4" and I had come to think of inside linebackers as guys who have to spend their lives in a crouch, keeping their center of gravity low, with rapid side-to-side movement. A tough assignment for someone as tall as he.

But he was quick to dismiss me. "You ever hear of Greg Buttle?!" he asked.

I was prepared to hear him reference some obscure figure I'd have no knowledge of. I even said, "No," (now I was being defensive), before realizing that, hell yeah, I know Greg Buttle. He was actually referencing a guy from the era when I paid attention to football, from the team I paid attention to! I had even played a little racquetball with Greg. My uncle ran a racquetball and fitness club, and while he recruited several Jets to use the facility, most used it as a place to throw weights around in the offseason if it was closer to their home than the Hofstra training facility, but Greg actually enjoyed the game of racquetball, seeing it as a way to keep pounds off in the offseason with relaitively minimum impact on the knees. (Racquetball is also a lot of side-to-side movement — more high-intensity rapid shuffling than running.)

Greg wasn't that competitive at the game though, and didn't mind hitting the ball around with a teenager. I was just giving him a few warmup points while he waited for a tournament game against my cousin, who was also a teenager, but was a highly ranked player who cleaned Buttle's clock. I was awed by playing an actual athlete with an actual beard and provided no such opposition.

My counselor, though, had come to know the guy in later years because their daughters played college sports (volleyball?) together, and they had become golfing partners. Buttle was a tall guy, but 6'3" or so, not tall like my counselor was. And he played outside linebacker, not inside, although the distinction between the roles of an inside linebacker and and outside guys wasn't as vast in the 4-3 as it would be in the 3-4. But I wasn't going to argue that with my counselor. If he says he could have been a pro football inside linebacker, who was I to argue? He looked more like an end to me, but the important thing was that we had a mutual acquaintance in Greg Buttle, and that was common ground we could go forward on.

When I used to listen to Jets games, in many games I remember hearing, "The pass was complete. Greg Buttle was covering in the area." I don't recall any "Buttle broke up the pass" or "intercepted by Buttle" calls, but it was "Buttle Covering in the area". He always seemed one football step slow.
I heard it so many times, my friends and I used to call him "Greg area" because that seemed like area was his last name.

My vote goes to Sauer.

Later

Nice piece on Buttle

Sauer is a legend. Maynard working as a decoy in SB3 helped Sauer immensely

Yeah, I stumbled over arguments that, if he had the interest in a longer career, he would have been the one in Canton, and not Maynard.

At the very least, Namath would have had a better career arc with the tandem in place.