SASKATOON — After multiple stops across the United States over the past seven years, Crezdon Butler’s football journey has brought him to Saskatchewan.
Just don’t ask him to write out the word.
“I let my text message auto-correct me on how to spell it,” the 30-year-old defensive back said with a chuckle after a training-camp session with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders at Saskatoon Minor Football Field. “ ‘Saskatoon’ is easy. ‘Saskatchewan’ is kind of tough.”
Butler can be forgiven for not knowing the spelling of a place he had never heard of before working out in the off-season with former Roughriders quarterback Darian Durant in Atlanta. Saskatchewan, after all, is a long way from Butler’s hometown of Asheville, N.C.
The province also doesn’t have a team in the NFL, which is the only professional league Butler had known before this year. The 6-foot-1, 191-pounder spent the past seven seasons in the NFL.
A product of Clemson University, Butler was selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the fifth round (164th overall) of the 2010 draft. After playing four games with the Steelers as a rookie, he was waived in September of 2011.
That started Butler down a rather remarkable path.
He had stints with the Arizona Cardinals (one game in 2011; his season ended due to a broken ankle), the Washington Redskins (two games in 2012; he was waived after suffering a hamstring injury), Arizona again (one game in 2012), the Buffalo Bills (five games in 2012), the San Diego Chargers (12 games in 2013), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (11 games in 2014), the Seattle Seahawks (one game in 2015), and the Detroit Lions (eight games in 2015 and one in 2016).
“You’ve definitely got to be on your toes,” Butler said when asked about bouncing around. “Sometimes it shows how resilient you are.
“You can play pretty well in The League and still get cut because it’s a numbers game. Then, when you get up there in age, they start looking for younger, fresher legs. Staying on my toes made me stronger being that I could get cut but then go to another team, learn that system, play a year and keep going.”
Does moving around so much make a guy think he’ll never find a home?
“Kind of, but everybody has their own story,” Butler replied. “Everybody has their own testimony to their life and mine is being resilient. I never quit.
“I know a couple of guys who got cut and they quit because they can’t live with adversity. That’s what I’ve shown: I can live with adversity and I can still play.”
Detroit didn’t re-sign Butler after his last stint in the Motor City, so he became a free agent in March. He was working out in Atlanta — with Durant, among others — in the hope that something would come along.
That something eventually was an offer from the Roughriders.
“My agent called and said, ‘Would you do the CFL? Nobody in the NFL is really talking seriously about bringing you in,’ ’’ Butler recalled. “I said, ‘Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s do it.’ I just want to play football.
“I want to end on my own terms. I don’t want anybody saying, ‘You can’t play anymore.’ I want to be able to say, ‘Maybe this is it.’ ’’
The Roughriders announced Butler’s signing on Wednesday and he was at practice that day. He then played in Saturday’s 25-25 pre-season tie with the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers and recorded one pass knockdown.
By the time Saskatchewan returned to practice in Saskatoon on Monday, Butler was working with the starters — and he very well could be with the No. 1 unit Friday when the Roughriders face the B.C. Lions in a pre-season game in Vancouver.
“Being in the NFL for seven years, I’ve been around a lot of savvy defensive co-ordinators who have a lot of calls,” he said, explaining his ability to quickly pick up Saskatchewan’s scheme. “Then you come here and you know you’re going to run at least 70-per-cent man, so it’s not too complex.
“If you get into your playbook when you get here, you can learn the system pretty quick. You don’t want to have any excuses when you get on the field. You don’t want to be like, ‘Oh, I’ve only been here three or four days.’ You want to get in there and play fast.”
That he did.
“He’s a really calm guy,” said Roughriders head coach Chris Jones, who doubles as the team’s defensive co-ordinator. “He has been through the gamut before. Camp’s not something that’s new for him. The only thing that’s new for him is the speed of our game and the waggle.”
Butler admitted the 20-second play clock required some getting used to during Saturday’s contest, as did the receivers’ pre-snap motion.
The biggest thing for him, though, was the pace of the game — something that’s much different than what he was accustomed to south of the border.
“You have the extra down in the NFL,” Butler said. “It’s just two downs here — two-and-out — and then you’re back on the field. I definitely had to get my lungs back and my wind back, but it’s coming along.”
