TEMPE, Ariz. -- When it came down to the Arizona Cardinals deciding whether to keep punter Ryan Quigley or re-sign his predecessor, Drew Butler, there was one factor that tipped the scale in favor of Butler.
“Drew gives us an extra field-goal kicker and kickoff guy,” coach Bruce Arians said Wednesday, a day after bringing Butler back to Arizona six weeks to the day after putting him on injured reserve with an ankle issue.
But, as Arians then pointed out, sometimes a roster move is made simply based on taste.
“Just like the way he kicks better,” Arians said.
The statistics show Butler and Quigley performed similarly, but Arians preferred a couple of things Butler did over Quigley, such as placing punts inside the 10- and 20-yard lines, as well as his directional punting.
Arians wasn’t concerned with either punter’s net and gross averages, blaming poor numbers on both the kick and the coverage. Butler suffered a severe ankle sprain on his first punt of the season. He was healthy enough to punt a week later against Tampa Bay, and felt it was his best performance in his three games this year. He suffered an Achilles injury a week later before being placed on injured reserve.
It took his ankle four weeks to heal and he’s been training for the last two-and-a-half weeks, preparing to answer a team’s call if it came. Per his injury settlement with the Cardinals, he couldn’t return to the team for six weeks. Tuesday, when he worked out for Arizona and went through a physical, was six weeks to the day.
“I think I’ve proven my worth to these guys upstairs and everybody in the locker room to be back,” Butler said. “I’m glad to be back because we got a big playoff push coming up. If you think about it, it’s not much different than what we went through last year. I’m just glad to be here and help these guys stack wins.”
