Butcher Is Back in Picture at Linebacker : Pro football: After nearly accepting a Plan B offer from Miami six months ago, he climbs to top of Rams’ depth chart.

IRVINE — Although these days it seems a match made in blue-collar football heaven, six months ago Paul Butcher did not know whether he belonged here with Chuck Knox.

Although it seems crazy now, Butcher thought it might be best to accept a Plan B offer from the Miami Dolphins, a team looking for linebackers, rather than stay on a team with a new coach who he was sure was set to institute dramatic changes.

Butcher, 28, has banged around in this league seven years--his three-team career has emphasized the journey part of journeyman--and he thought maybe he would have to go through one more team change to get it right, to get his shot at a starting job.

Then he sat down with Knox, and now Butcher says it was “the best thing I did.” It’s hard to disagree.

“I said I wanted to get a feel for the type of players he was looking for,” Butcher said Monday. “He told me everything I wanted to hear.

“He said, ‘I don’t care if you’re a free agent, I don’t care how big you are, I don’t care how fast you are. The guys who are hustling every day and mentally working at their game and trying not to make mistakes, and the guys who are just the hard-nose type of people, those are the ones who are going to play for me.’

“I just listened, and I nodded my head and I thought to myself, ‘I think I’m his type of player.”’

Butcher, it seems, thought right.

And guess who has risen up the depth chart to the prize starting spot at right outside linebacker? Not last year’s second-round pick Roman Phifer, who is listed as the second-stringer. Not veteran Frank Stams, who was the temporary starter in mini-camp but has missed most of training camp because of a leg injury.

The starter, at least for now, is Butcher, probably best known as last year’s kick-off kamikaze, the player who would whip up the crowd before the kick, then burst downfield looking for wedges to bust.

The highest praise Knox can give to a player is that “he hits and he hustles,” which is what Butcher has brought to the table his entire NFL career. Butcher was a Pro Bowl alternate twice as a special teams player in Detroit, but he has never gotten a shot at major playing time.

He left Detroit as a Plan B free agent in 1989, but was cut in the preseason and eventually signed with the Rams as a free agent during their playoff run that year. Somehow he has stayed around.

“He goes all out,” Knox said, “and there’s always a place for people like that.”

Butcher is 6 feet, a few inches under perfect outside linebacker height, and his sprint speed won’t get him an Olympic berth. Because of his size, he didn’t get drafted out of college, made the Lions as a longshot.

“My career has been kind of topsy-turvy,” Butcher said. “I’ve been up and down. I’m just a blue-collar type of football player, I think--man, I just keep working.

“The best thing about camp this year, I think, is everyone came in on the same level. The coaches, they really didn’t know much about the players and we didn’t know much about the coaches. And they just said, ‘Hey, we’re going to let your performance tell who’s going to play for us.’

“I’m real happy right now. I’ve got that spot, but I’ve got Roman breathing down my neck.”

Butcher impressed the coaches early by poking his helmet and shoulder into every play he could--irritating at least two running backs in the early days with his rambunctious play in what are supposed to be non-tackling drills.

“You can make mistakes, but if you’re out there hitting and flying around and hustling, that can make up for it--as long as you don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over,” Butcher said.

“Coach Knox, he’s a hard-nosed type of football coach, and he goes back to the old school a little bit. He likes guys who put their nose to it.”

Said linebackers coach Dick Selcer: “He’s very much of a workaholic, very intense guy, smart guy. Not a very big guy, but he overcomes a lot of it just by that approach to the game--that’s why he’s done pretty well so far.”

But even after his discussion this spring with Knox, players who have had Butcher’s kind of career learn how to count the numbers at draft time. When he got the offer from the Dolphins, he had to do some quick (analyzing).

“I heard some stories about Miami, that they were interested in some linebackers in the draft,” Butcher said. “And I was trying to get the feel about what the Rams were looking for in the draft, and I know (Texas A&M; linebacker and eventual Indianapolis Colts’ draftee) Quentin Coryatt, his name came up a few times. But my main concern was if I stay, am I going to get a fair shot to make the team?

“The best thing happened. I stayed here. We drafted one linebacker in the 11th round (Brian Townsend from Michigan). Miami drafted four.”