John Butler (born April 3, 1973) is an American football coach who is the defensive backs coach and passing game coordinator for the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. ...

of the National Football League (NFL). He previously served as the secondary coach for the

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division, and play their home ga ...

and has coached collegiately at several schools, including

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 ...

, South Carolina, and Minnesota.

Coaching career

College

Butler began his coaching career as an assistant at his alma mater,

Catholic University Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical univ ...

, as a defensive backs coach before being promoted to defensive coordinator in 1996. He then progressed to Texas, where he served as a graduate assistant under both John Mackovic and

Mack Brown William Mack Brown (born August 27, 1951) is an American college football coach. He is currently in his second stint as the head football coach for the University of North Carolina, where he first coached from 1988 until departing in 1997, whe ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

respectively. After spending the next four years in the lower levels of college football, he returned to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) in 2003 with

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he worked as the linebackers coach and special teams coach. His first connection to Ted Roof came from 2007-2010 while working for the Minnesota Golden Gophers as the linebackers coach under Roof. The

hired Butler as a defensive assistant in the off-season, but then was hired by South Carolina where he served for one year. Butler re-united with Roof on Bill O'Brien's staff at

. After Roof moved back to his alma mater at Georgia Tech, Butler was promoted to defensive coordinator over two more experienced assistants, linebackers coach Ron Vanderlinden and defensive line coach Larry Johnson.

Professional

In early 2014, Butler left Penn State to join O'Brien's Houston Texans staff as secondary coach. On January 2, 2018 he was fired by the Houston Texans. On January 30, 2018 Butler was hired by the

coaching staff under head coach and former high school teammate

Sean McDermott Sean Michael McDermott (born March 21, 1974) is an American football coach who is the head coach for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL). He began his NFL coaching career as an assistant for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2001, ...

. On February 24, 2022, he gained the additional title of passing game coordinator.

References

External links

Buffalo Bills bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, John 1973 births Living people Buffalo Bills coaches Catholic University Cardinals football players Catholic University Cardinals football coaches Catholic University Cardinals men's basketball players Harvard Crimson football coaches Houston Texans coaches Midwestern State Mustangs football coaches Minnesota Golden Gophers football coaches Penn State Nittany Lions football coaches South Carolina Gamecocks football coaches Texas Longhorns football coaches Texas State Bobcats football coaches Sportspeople from Philadelphia Players of American football from Pennsylvania