Will Bills CB Kaiir Elam blossom outside of John Butler’s shadow?

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NFL: Buffalo Bills at Kansas City Chiefs
Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

What’s in store for Elam in year three, now that Butler is no longer his position coach?

The 2024 NFL season will prove huge for Buffalo Bills cornerback Kaiir Elam. After two incredibly frustrating and often disappointing seasons to begin his professional career, Elam has spoken to reporters during this year’s OTAs about trusting and believing in himself now more than ever.

For Elam, there’s a sense of renewed opportunity. New cornerbacks coach Jahmile Addae takes over the role John Butler held for six seasons. Addae joins Buffalo’s defensive coaching staff as a completely new face to One Bills Drive, and someone who may present a thoroughly welcomed change in coaching style for Elam.

It remains to be seen how much, if at all, Addae’s coaching methods depart from Butler. Though you can be sure that Addae is eager to put his own stamp on a defensive secondary vacated by Butler.

For the Bills and Butler, things came to an abrupt end, with reports stating that the two sides had agreed to mutually part ways. That breakup was the end result following a season where McDermott chose to call the defensive plays instead naming the experienced Butler (who also held the title of passing game coordinator) in that role.

Likely exacerbating things was McDermott’s decision to promote the less-experienced Bobby Babich to defensive coordinator. Babich comes from a coaching family, his father Bob Babich having coached linebackers from 2017 through 2021 until his son took over the position. One could envision a scenario where McDermott wasn’t keen to lose another potentially up-and-coming coordinator (Babich) over a known commodity (Butler).

So what was really behind John Butler leaving the Bills? To anyone paying attention, it appeared as though Butler simply decided to leave after being passed up yet again for the defensive coordinator role.

For his part, Butler informed Tim Graham in an article with The Athletic that he simply wants to run an NFL or college football defense. At 51, Butler is still plenty young to coach in the NFL, but the trend of late has been to hire young, relative unknowns for coordinator positions. Perhaps he feels the clock is ticking like never before?

Soon after Butler’s departure, he posted a series of tweets propping up the work the Bills’ defensive backs accomplished in six seasons with him at the helm. Taking a decidedly defensive tone, Butler seemed to imply he was anything but the problem.

There was of course one glaring concern among Butler’s coaching resume with the Bills. Despite those impressive unit stats and rankings, Elam, the team’s 2022 first-round pick, was unable to blossom during two seasons under Butler’s tutelage. The natural move is to wonder whether the responsibility here lies mainly with Elam or Butler, or perhaps somewhere in-between, involving some flaw in their relationship.

It’s true that a player’s failings don’t exclusively belong to their coaches, but much of what happens during an NFL team’s practice or behind closed doors remains off-limits to outside eyes and ears. But not always.

We know there are at least two sides to every story. In this case, consider the comments made by former Bills center Eric Wood during his most recent “Centered On Buffalo” podcast. Just before the 14-minute mark, Wood revealed an interesting bit of news concerning the coaching relationship between Elam and Butler.

Said Wood to guest Matt Parrino:

“I’m interested to see what he looks like this year. I mean, it was pretty well known from people that were around training camp practices — I mean, you could watch John Butler just crushing this kid. He has obvious confidence issues, he’s talked about that. Now he tried to regain some of that at the end of last year — he had the interception in the playoffs. He made some plays towards the end of the year, and hopefully he can carry that into this offseason. But I’m excited to see what he can maybe do with a different position coach. Maybe someone who’s building him up on a consistent basis as opposed to — I mean, and look... I’m not in the building on a day-to-day basis. I’m simply saying what I’ve seen and heard from, you know, people reporting on practices and what they’ve seen and how he was treated, uh, by his position coach. So, I’m interested to see if he can step it up this year and maybe come into that first-round draft pick mold — which we all hoped we’d see with his size and skillset and all that.”

Again, we can’t know for sure whether or not Butler’s coaching style was counterproductive to Elam’s growth as a player, but clearly something needed to change. Was Elam the only player Butler tore down in practice on a regular basis?

The intent here isn’t to imply that Butler’s coaching style was wrong. Obviously those stats he tweeted about play a key role in backing up his work and approach. But in Butler’s role as defensive backs coach, he wasn’t able to bring out the best in Elam.

As for his departure from Buffalo, it’s fair to question whether his tactics, specifically regarding Elam, played too big of a role in negatively shaping his future with the team. In Butler’s call to “Ask ANY DB I have coached” — what would Kaiir Elam say?

For One Bills Drive, there’s quite a bit at stake regarding Elam and his status as a first-round draft pick. Now that the dust has settled, Elam remains with the Bills, while Butler continues looking for his next opportunity.

Will Kaiir Elam and Jahmile Addae prove to be a perfect match — the winning formula? Elam believes there’s never been a better opportunity.

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