Bill Belichick, Matt Patricia have nothing but good things to say about Malcolm Butler

With the understanding that it’s early in the season, and the Patriots are always preaching the value of peaking at the right time, on Tuesday the coaching staff sounded a positive note on cornerback Malcolm Butler and his performance against the Texans.

“Man, I thought Malcolm played really well,” defensive coordinator Matt Patricia said on a conference call with the media on Tuesday. “I think the guy really tried to go out and play extremely hard. This is a very competitive guy — Malcolm steps up to the challenges that you place in front of him. He goes out and competes, he works hard, he tries to do it the right way and he really tries to get better every week.

“We had a productive week last week for him,” Patricia added. “I really thought in the game, I thought he really tried to do what we asked him to do and do it the right way.”

The praise stands in stark contrast to their lukewarm offerings from the week before, where both Patricia and Bill Belichick were tepid in their statements when asked about Butler’s performance.

"I think Malcolm did a good job," Belichick said Tuesday. "I mean, all of our defensive backs I thought were pretty competitive. We had some scramble yardage and loose plays and things like that. But I mean, the normal passing game we were pretty competitive on. But like anything else, there are certainly a lot of things we can do better. I'm not saying it was perfect or great by any means. We've still got a lot of things we can improve on."