Linebacker
No. 51
Penn State
"Greg has good football intelligence and a burning desire to excel. One of the Jets' hardest hitters, he was chosen the club's rookie of the year in 1976.
During his college career, Greg was a consensus All-American at Penn State.
He sang in a barbershop quartet at Penn State."
-1979 Topps No. 161
GREG BUTTLE OF THE JETS: ANOTHER GREAT PENN STATE LB
Many Experts Think He Will Follow In the Footsteps Of Another Nittany Lion, Jack Ham, And Be All-Pro. One Thing Is Sure: The Four-Year Pro Is One Of The NFL's Hardest Hitters
"Greg Buttle doesn't feel he is one of the meanest players in the NFL. In fact, the cantankerous Jets linebacker isn't sure what mean means.
'Mean is an adjective the press call people,' Buttle says. 'I guess if you hit people and try to rip their heads off, you're mean. If you go out and just want to tackle somebody, you're not mean. I guess I would fit in the first one [category].'
Greg Buttle, the Jets' 6-2, 232-pound left linebacker, is certainly one of the game's most savage hitters. He doesn't have the image of Pittsburgh's Jack Lambert- a toothless, blood-stained ghoul- but he's certainly ornery and brutal. And right before a game.
'I'm hungry,' Buttle says. 'I never eat breakfast before a game. That puts me in a disposition that's right for me.'
Buttle once described himself as a surly dog on the field. As a rookie, he frequently got into fights because he felt compelled to prove that this was one young punk who wasn't going to take any guff.
'You turn into something else,' he says of his Jekyll-Hyde transformation. 'I can't go out on the field with the personality I have now.
'I'll shake hands with somebody before a game, or if he's my buddy, I'll say 'Hi.' But when I put my helmet on it's time to play football. My brother could be playing across from me, I don't care. I'd play him like I'd play anyone I didn't like.'
Buttle has become one of the best interviews on the Jets. He is analytical and incisive. It wasn't always that way.
'I didn't want to be bothered by any outside influences when I was trying to learn the game of football,' he explains. 'I didn't want anyone writing anything good about me because I didn't want to believe any of that stuff.
'I wanted to be good before the press said I was good.'
So that means that you now think you are good.
'Yeah.'
He is very good. He has a chance to be the best. Jack Ham of Pittsburgh is 30 now and he can't be All-Pro on the left side forever. Buttle is 25 and ready to challenge.
'All-Pro would be a nice goal to reach,' Buttle confesses. 'I'm trying to keep the mental mistakes down. To none. I can deal with physical mistakes. There are guys bigger than me and stronger and faster.
'I don't think there are any smarter.'
And that's his secret. Once Buttle felt the need to make every tackle on the field. The dreaded habit, now cured for the most part, is called freelancing. Now he makes all the plays he's expected to make. Ask him what makes him a 'big-play' linebacker, and he calmly points to his head.
'I don't get the hits I get on the field being stupid,' he says. 'If I have a man [to man] coverage on a back, sometimes I'll let him go out in the flat to get the quarterback to throw to him .'C' mon, baby, throw the ball!' And the minute he does- boom!'
Some of Buttle's teammates regard him as cocky and loud. Buttle says it isn't so and prides himself on 'telling it like it was.' He doesn't walk, he struts. He thrusts his chest out. Richard Todd walked out of the locker room one day early in the season for practice, and Buttle's greeting was a shoulder blow that sent Todd reeling.
'He likes the tough-guy image,' says middle linebacker Mike Hennigan. 'He likes being the center of attention.'
Running back Clark Gaines says Buttle is self confident rather than cocky. 'Muhammad Ali had it and he was great,' Gaines says. 'Why can't Greg Buttle have it?'
'I'm not cocky,' Buttle says. 'I know my ability. I know what I can do and the things I can't. I don't go around telling anyone I'm great.'
Buttle may be on the verge of greatness because of his combative nature and competitiveness. 'I remember the first day of practice my rookie year [1976],' Gaines recalls. 'I was running a pass pattern and I beat him the first time real bad. A couple of guys got on his back. The next play he tackled me head-on without equipment. We've been friends since.' "
-Steve Serby, The New York Post (Football Digest, January 1980)
