Raider X-Factor: Adam Butler could help team unlock full defensive potential

Maxx Crosby and Christian Wilkins were outdone and drowned out for once.

The Raiders’ pair of $100 million defensive-line disruptors are typically both the most impactful and loudest players at practice on any given day. But while the Las Vegas defense dismantled the offense during a stretch last week at the Jack R. Hammett Sports Complex in Costa Mesa, Calif., veteran defensive tackle Adam Butler snatched the spotlight.

The seventh-year pro, second-year Raider blew up a play in the backfield and then bellowed to draw the attention of everyone.

“I have a new attitude, I really do,” Butler said. “I want to be seen. I want to show up. I still feel like in this league, I have something to prove. I want to prove it to my teammates, and I want to prove it to the coaches. I want to let everyone know I’m here.”

The Raiders’ defensive line is the team’s best asset heading into the upcoming season. The unit probably merits a top-10 ranking with the enviable edge rusher/defensive tackle tandem of Crosby and Wilkins alone.  

But to ensure it’s great instead of merely very good, Crosby and Wilkins have been the first to say Las Vegas needs a team effort. The superstars need edge rusher Malcolm Koonce to continue his breakout that included six sacks in the final four games last year, and they need to find the best option next to Wilkins in the interior.      

So far, that’s been the 30-year-old Butler.

“I just want to continue to be an all-down player,” Butler said. “For most of my career, I’ve been mostly pass downs, mostly third downs and that’s good. I think my stats are good. They could be better, but I really want to be more of an early-down player as well and just change the narrative about myself throughout the league and show that I can play the run and I can rush the passer at the same time.”

The 6-foot-5, 300-pound Dallas native is hard on himself but has come a long way in a short time to emerge as a key contributor and potential starter in Las Vegas. Raiders defensive line coach Rob Leonard remembered Butler being called a “camp body” going into last season when he was signed in free agency.

No one projected the former New England Patriot and Miami Dolphin to make the roster after he was out of the NFL in 2022 following a failed physical with the latter franchise.

But Butler made too much of a splash in training camp to ignore. The Raiders moved on from a couple of 2022 draft picks — trading fourth-rounder Neil Farrell and waiving fifth-rounder Matthew Butler — to keep him.

The move was validated, especially as the season went on with Adam Butler claiming more snaps and making more plays as a pass rusher. He tallied five sacks, with the first one being particularly meaningful to him against his former team in the Patriots.

Adam Butler had one of his best games in that tight victory over New England, and felt “disrespected” when his former coach, Bill Belichick, didn’t seek him out afterwards.

Butler started half of the season as an undrafted rookie free agent out of Vanderbilt on the 2017-2018 Patriots team that lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. He remained a rotational defensive lineman the next year when New England knocked off the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl 53 — making him the only current Raider with a Super Bowl ring.

He took the lack of acknowledgement from his former team as another slight.

“I’ve taken pride in being the underdog, the guy who doesn’t get all the credit but helps the team win,” he said. “I take pride in that but I’m really trying to change that narrative because, from the way I see it, it only benefits me so far. It limits the outcomes that I could be getting from this game by being the underdog all the time.”  

As well as he’s played throughout training camp, Adam Butler still looks like an underdog to become a full-time starter with the Raiders. His increased workload was partly because of an injury to defensive tackle John Jenkins, who recently returned to practice.

Adam Butler outplayed the other teammates getting more looks in Jenkins’ absence, namely second-year draft picks Tyree Wilson and Byron Young, but it might not have been enough to unseat the returning starter.  

Jenkins started all 17 games for the Raiders last year and remains atop the unofficial depth chart the team released this week ahead of a preseason game at the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday. Adam Butler split time and wound up with only 67 snaps fewer than Jenkins on the season, though he mostly played passing downs.    

His whole goal this year is to show off his well-roundedness and how he can be as much of a run-stopping space-eater as a quarterback-seeking missile, and he plans to keep at it until the opportunity presents itself.

“The best thing to do is change yourself,” he said. “It’s not point fingers and say, The coach isn’t doing this,’ or, ‘It’s this person or that person.’”

Adam Butler has an important ally and believer in Crosby. The two went to rival high schools about 25 miles away from each other.

Although Crosby was younger, he said he knew about Butler all the way back when he was playing high school football. That helped them connect as soon as Butler arrived in Las Vegas.

On the field, Crosby said they’ve been “locked in” together since the first day.

“A guy like him, he’s a thinker,” Crosby said. “When you're out on the field with him, he's calling out where they're sliding, calling out protections, things like that. When you have a guy like that on the field, he's nothing but an asset, and he plays hard, and he’s a very underrated rusher.”

Adam Butler signed a one-year, $1.8 million contract to stay with the Raiders this offseason. He wants more.

Seeing the blockbuster deals signed by Crosby and Wilkins motivated him to approach the upcoming season differently.

No longer content being an unsung contributor, Adam Butler wants to make some of his own noise.

“It does push me a lot watching Maxx and Christian,” he said. “Watching them get after it every day, it makes me want to step up my game too. I’m glad we’ve got those two in the room. I’m trying to get my foot in the door. I’m trying to get somewhere in that conversation.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or