Contextualization Of New Steelers WR Hakeem Butler’s 2023 Pass Targets With Battlehawks

The Pittsburgh Steelers recently signed wide receiver Hakeem Butler after his XFL season ended and on the heels of that deal, I am providing a deep contextualization of his 2023 pass targets with the St. Louis Battlehawks to give a better sense of the player he returns to the NFL as.

The table of contextualized data below should be easy to digest. The last column in the table of data provided includes a link to a video of every play from the television copies.

For starters, Butler was targeted 73 times with the Battlehawks in the 10 games that he played in. He caught 51 of those 73 targets for 599 yards and eight touchdowns. Butler also had five other conversion targets with the Battlehawks, and I have included those in the table below for you to see. I am not counting those in the regular contextualized stats, however.

On the 73 regular play targets that counted last season, Butler registered an aDOT (average depth of target) of 8.71 yards. His aDOC (average depth of completion), however, was 6.80 yards. Butler did a lot after the catch as he had 280 yards in total, an average of 5.49 yards per reception. I have him down for seven drops with the Battlehawks on his 73 total targets. He definitely needs to work on those drops now that he’s back in the NFL.

As to where Butler registered his 73 targets this past season in the XFL, 48 came between the numbers with eight of those coming between the hashmarks in the middle of the field. Twenty-five others came outside the numbers. Eleven of Butler’s 73 receptions came more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage and seven of those went for touchdowns. Three of his receptions came on air yards of more than 20. Butler registered 10 explosive-play receptions — 20 yards or longer — with his longest going for 66 yards.

Butler registered 54 targets with fewer than 15 air yards this past season and he caught 42 of those. Of his 19 targets with air yards of 15 or longer, Butler caught nine of those.

Butler registered 15 red-zone targets in the XFL this past season. He caught eight, with four being good for touchdowns. Two of those four red-zone touchdown receptions came outside the numbers.

Butler caught 48 of 64 total targets from Battlehawks quarterback A.J. McCarron. Seven of his eight touchdown receptions came from McCarron as well. He caught three of his five passes thrown by Battlehawks quarterback Nick Tiano with one of those going for a touchdown.

The main takeaway from Butler’s targets from the XFL season is that he can play all over the field and deliver catches both short and deep and especially between the numbers. His drops obviously were not great, and his overall route running ability is just average. His size helps him in the catch-radius category but even with that, he could stand to be a better contested ball catcher.

Butler can gain nice yardage after the catch, especially when he is targeted fewer than five yards past the line of scrimmage. You’ll see a pretty good combination of wide receiver screens and quick flare-out receptions in his XFL tape from last season and that hurt his aDOC (average depth of completion). In fact, 15 of his 51 catches this past season came two yards from the line of scrimmage or closer. Seven of those were caught behind the line of scrimmage.

Butler is not an overly twitchy player off the line, but he can get off at the snap of the football and get separation just the same. He can run quite well out in space and his big build makes him tough to get to the ground.

In closing, Butler projects as more of a big slot receiver with the Steelers. He’ll also likely need to show some special-teams ability if he wants to have a shot at making the 53-man roster. Overall, Butler’s XFL tape from this past season showed that he certainly deserves another chance in the NFL. He should be a fun player to watch during training camp and the preseason.

2023 Hakeem Butler XFL Pass Targets Contextualized In Order