Percy
Butler.
Percy
Butler.
Louisiana· 6'0"· 194 lb· 4.36s 40
"Speed and want-to in the alley made him a Day 3 safety with a guaranteed job in the kicking game, and the only question was whether his coverage would ever earn him a second one."Pre-draft read
Butler played as a downhill free safety who covered ground in a hurry. From a deep alignment he triggered on the run fit with real urgency, took efficient angles across the field and arrived with more pop than his listed weight suggested. Speed was the trait everything else was built on.
The secondary trait was special teams value: he was a gunner and a coverage demon who blocked a kick as a senior. In coverage he was better patrolling a deep half than matching a slot receiver, comfortable in single-high and quarters rules where he could read the quarterback and close. The signature was range plus willingness — a safety who wanted to be involved in the run game rather than fall off the back of it.
Single-high or quarters defense that lets a rangy safety play with his eyes on the quarterback and fit the run downhill.
Year 1: core-four special teamer and third safety in dime packages. Ceiling: full-time free safety in a zone-heavy structure.
A defense that asks its safeties to walk down and cover tight ends and slot receivers man-to-man on early downs.
Who is Commanders rookie safety Percy Butler?
Breakdown of his Louisiana tape, focused on range from depth and downhill run fits.
Percy Butler complete rookie highlights
Every rookie-season snap of note, heavy on special teams coverage reps.
Commanders extend safety Percy Butler - safety room outlook
Context on how Washington has used and valued him across his time in the secondary.
Butler arrived at draft season as a four-year Louisiana safety who had grown from a six-game freshman into the back-end anchor of a Sun Belt champion. The football identity was straightforward: an explosive, competitive defensive back whose value came from range, speed and the willingness to hit, packaged with immediate special teams utility.
The production backed it. He put up 44 tackles with two interceptions, six breakups and two forced fumbles in a ten-game 2020, then a 62-tackle senior year with six tackles for loss, an interception, four breakups and a blocked kick that earned second-team all-conference honors. The signature games were the physical ones. The flags were coverage refinement and level of competition: his ball production was modest for a free safety, he was grabby when a route got on top of him, and he had not been asked to carry a vertical route against Power Five speed very often.
Boards saw a Day 3 safety with a core-four floor and a starting ceiling if the coverage caught up to the athleticism, a combine invitee whose testing confirmed the tape. Washington took him at 113 knowing the kicking game would pay the bill while the defense developed him.
- 01
Range from depth
He covered real ground from a single-high alignment and could work sideline to sideline to clean up a play others could not reach.
- 02
Downhill trigger
He read run keys and came forward without hesitation, arriving in the alley with force rather than drifting into the tackle.
- 03
Special teams value
A genuine core-four contributor who worked as a gunner and blocked a kick as a senior, guaranteeing him a roster spot.
- 04
Ball awareness in zone
His 2020 tape showed him reading the quarterback in quarters and breaking on throws for two picks and six breakups.
- 05
Four-year development
He went from six freshman games to a second-team all-conference senior year, a curve that suggested he was still improving.
- 01
Man coverage in the slot
He got handsy when a quick receiver stemmed him, and matching route runners in space was never part of his college job.
- 02
Modest ball production
Three career interceptions from a free safety role was thin evidence that he would create turnovers at the next level.
- 03
Tackling consistency
The aggression that made him effective in the alley also produced reps where he arrived out of control and ran through the target.
- 04
Level of competition
Sun Belt offenses rarely stressed him vertically, leaving questions about how his angles held up against NFL speed.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.36sp50
- Vertical
- 31.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 123inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Louisiana | 6 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2019 | Louisiana | 14 | 54 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 2020 | Louisiana | 10 | 44 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| 2021 | Louisiana | 13 | 62 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| Career | — | 43 | 169 | 1 | 3 | 13 | 5 |
2020 and 2021 verified on cfbstats (Louisiana team 671, player 1097009); cfbstats does not publish 2018 or 2019 for this player, so those lines come from the official Louisiana bio. The school bio credits 61 tackles in 2021 while the cfbstats game log totals 62; the log figure is used here and the discrepancy is noted. Career totals are the sum of the verified season fields only. Sacks before 2020, interceptions before 2020 and fumble recoveries in 2018 and 2019 are not published by either source and are left unverified rather than counted as zero.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
All-Pro caliber special teams safety whose defensive snaps come in spurts around a core-four role.
Rangy single-high safety who converts athleticism and toughness into a long run of starting seasons.
Kicking-game specialist who hangs around for years without ever securing a defensive job.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Washington got exactly the core-four rookie it drafted. He played 15 games in 2022 without a start, living on special teams and picking up 11 combined tackles. The defensive role came in 2023, when injuries pushed him into 13 starts and he responded with 64 combined tackles, eight passes defensed and a forced fumble, comfortably the best season of his career. The staff change afterwards moved him back down the depth chart: five starts and 47 combined tackles across 17 games in 2024, then a single start and 14 combined tackles in 16 games in 2025, with the kicking game again carrying the snap count. He opened 2026 still in Washington in the same role.
In hindsight the pick looks like the honest version of its own evaluation. He has stayed on one roster for five seasons, played 64 games, started 19 of them and produced 136 combined tackles, which is a real professional career off a fourth-round pick. What never arrived was the coverage growth that would have made him a fixture, so the ceiling settled where the concerns predicted: a valued special teams starter and an emergency safety rather than a full-time one.