Stability. It’s what many seek in their professional and personal lives. Not everyone can find it.
Keith Butler found that in Pittsburgh, though. It’s what caused him to join the coaching staff of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first place, and it’s what kept him around through the end of his coaching career, too.
Appearing in a podcast interview with Talegate Sports on YouTube to discuss his career that spanned from college to the NFL as both a player and a coach, Butler revealed why he took the job offer from the Steelers in 2003, leaving the Cleveland Browns after four years.
“My contract was up, and then Bill Cowher called me and asked me to come over to interview for the job,” Butler said of his move to Pittsburgh, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “So, my thought process in that, too, was, ‘Hey, the Pittsburgh Steelers are stable as they come in the NFL.’
“And that made a big difference to me in terms of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.”
After four seasons with the Browns as the linebackers coach, Butler’s contract was up and the Browns were undergoing significant changes. That opened the door for the Steelers to swoop in. Bill Cowher gave him an interview, Butler nailed it and landed the linebackers coach job, and the rest is history.
From 2003 through the 2015 season, Butler was the Steelers’ linebackers coach. In that time, Butler helped the Steelers win Super Bowls XL and XLIII, developing some great linebackers in the process, from Joey Porter and Clark Haggans to LaMarr Woodley and James Harrison, and more.
While in that coaching role, Butler was starting to generate some buzz around the NFL, especially after Cowher retired and the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin as the head coach. Due to Butler’s previous experience with Tomlin in college dating back to their time at Memphis and Arkansas State together, the linebackers coach stuck around.
Eventually that turned into him becoming the defensive coordinator in 2016 for the Steelers. But prior to that time, Butler had some interest elsewhere, including from the Tennessee Titans and coach Ken Whisenhunt to be the defensive coordinator.
Staying in a stable environment like Pittsburgh was the move for Butler though.
“I had a couple of different offers in terms of being a defensive coordinator in other places besides the Pittsburgh Steelers, Ken Whisenhunt offered me a job in Nashville [Titans]. And he also offered a job at the Arizona Cardinals when he was there,” Butler said of the interest he had elsewhere. “And we ended up beating Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl 43 in the Super Bowl. So, I ended up staying at Pittsburgh all that time, and then it ended up being 19 years in Pittsburgh.
“I’ve got three sons and we won two Super Bowls. I was gonna try. I thought the best chance for us to win the Super Bowl was at Pittsburgh than any other place in the NFL. So that’s the reason I stayed there the whole time.”
During Butler’s coaching career, that belief of Pittsburgh being the best chance to win a Super Bowl was often true. Butler went to three Super Bowls in his 19 years with the Steeler and won two of them.
In that span, the Steelers consistently had a great defense, and that great defense was driven by the work his outside linebackers did getting after the quarterback and setting the edge as run defenders.
Even all these years later, the outside linebacker position remains the key cog in the engine of the Steelers’ 3-4 defense. That will never change.
Though he had offers to leave and get that defensive coordinator role after toiling under Dick LeBeau, Butler never made the move. He was rewarded for it, and was able to build quite the life in Pittsburgh, too.
Check out the full interview with Butler below.
