Vincent Deon Butler (born January 4, 1986) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

wide receiver. He was drafted by the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...

in the third round of the

2009 NFL Draft The 2009 NFL Draft was the seventy-fourth annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible football players. The draft took place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, New York, on April 25 and 26, 2009. T ...

. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

College career

After redshirting as a freshman at

without an

athletic scholarship An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...

as a

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

., Butler rose to the top of the depth chart alongside Derrick Williams to provide a solid deep threat for

quarterbacks The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ameri ...

Michael Robinson and

Anthony Morelli Anthony Michael Morelli (born June 21, 1985) is a former American football quarterback. He was signed by the Arizona Cardinals as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He played college football at Penn State. Morelli was a member of the San Jose Sabe ...

. During his freshman season, Butler broke four school freshman records: season receptions (37), receiving yards in a game (125, versus

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

), season yards (691), and

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

catches (9). Butler also holds the single-game receiving yards record with 216 yards on 11 receptions against Northwestern on September 30, 2006. He finished

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

with 47 receptions for 633 yards and 4 touchdowns. He had a season-high 7 catches for 93 yards and a touchdown in Penn State's 38–7 blowout win over Wisconsin. In the 2008 season, Butler caught 47 passes for 810 yards and seven touchdowns. He caught eight passes for 105 yards against

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. Butler was a record-setting receiver for Coach

Joe Paterno Joseph Vincent Paterno (; December 21, 1926 – January 22, 2012), sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football, Penn ...

's Nittany Lions. Butler passed

Bobby Engram Simon J. "Bobby" Engram III (born January 7, 1973) is a retired American football wide receiver. He was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the second round of the 1996 NFL Draft. He played college football at Penn State. Engram also played for the ...

to become Penn State's all-time receptions leader in November of his senior season against the

Indiana Hoosiers The Indiana Hoosiers are the intercollegiate sports teams and players of Indiana University Bloomington, named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Indiana. The Hoosiers participate in NCAA Division I, Division I of the Nationa ...

Professional career

2009 NFL Combine

Seattle Seahawks

The

traded up to select Butler in the 3rd round (91st overall) of the

. They traded the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

a 5th- and 7th-round pick plus a 3rd-round pick in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

in order to position themselves to select Butler. The team's interest in Butler reportedly stemmed, in part, from conversations with Butler's college teammate,

Aaron Maybin Aaron Michael Maybin (born April 6, 1988) is a former linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL). His college football career was at Penn State University where he received consensus All-American hon ...

, during a pre-draft interview in Seattle. He signed a four-year, $3.2 million contract with the team on July 24, 2009. He received a $680,750

signing bonus A signing bonus or sign-on bonus is a sum of money paid to a new employee (including a professional sports person) by a company as an incentive to join that company. They are often given as a way of making a compensation package more attractive ...

2010 season

He got his first receiving touchdown on September 12, 2010, against the

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

. It was his only catch of the game and it was for 13 yards. His second touchdown came against the

Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...

. After Deion Branch was traded to the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

Butler was named a starter, only to be replaced in the starting line-up several weeks later by teammate

Ben Obomanu Benjamin Ebenezer Obomanu (born October 30, 1983) is a former American football wide receiver. He was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the 7th round of the 2006 NFL Draft. Obomanu played college football for the Auburn Tigers. High school Ob ...

. He was put on injured reserve after breaking his leg during a touchdown catch against the 49ers in week 14.

2011 season

Butler started the season on the Physically Unable to Perform list. He played in the final four games of the season.

2012 season

Butler played in all four preseason games with the Seahawks, but was waived on August 31, 2012, as part of the final roster cuts from 75 to 53 players. On December 15, 2012, the Seahawks signed Butler after clearing a physical.

San Diego Chargers

Butler signed with the

San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...

on April 8, 2013. On August 25, 2013, he was cut by the Chargers.

Personal

Butler earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in Crime, Law & Justice from Penn State in 2008. He has mentioned being interested in a career in

forensic science Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal ...

after football. Butler spent the summer of 2008 as an

intern An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

with the

Philadelphia Police Department The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD or Philly PD) is the law enforcement agency, police agency responsible for law enforcement and investigations within the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The PPD is one of the oldest municipal police a ...

's Crime Scene Unit, observing several

homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from accidental, reckless, or negligent acts even if there is no inten ...

crime scenes A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSI) and law enforcemen ...

, and augmenting his degree with valuable field experience. He currently resides in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

References

External links

Deon Butler Talks At Indy
''

The Morning Call ''The Morning Call'' is a daily newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1883, it is the second longest continuously published newspaper in the Lehigh Valley, after ''The Express-Times''. In 2020, the newspaper permanently closed its Al ...

'', February 20, 2009
Radio interview: Deon Butler
Dave Mahler Show, KJR-AM, July 31, 2009.
Former Nittany Lion Butler makes leap from NFL to cyber forensics
June 12, 2020. {{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Deon 1986 births Living people American football wide receivers Penn State Nittany Lions football players People from Woodbridge, Virginia Players of American football from Virginia San Diego Chargers players Seattle Seahawks players