PITTSBURGH — Keith Butler was prepared to retire as defensive coordinator after the 2020 season but was talked into coming back for one more season by coach Mike Tomlin.
It didn’t take a arm twisting, though, because Butler wanted one more chance to win a third Super Bowl ring.
“I have three sons and two rings,” Butler said. “So I have a problem.”
Butler, 66, wasn’t changing his mind this time. He told Tomlin and team president Art Rooney II on Saturday he is retiring after 19 seasons with the Steelers, the past seven as defensive coordinator.
“I stayed this extra year because Ben (Roethlisberger) stayed and I thought we had a chance to win a Super Bowl or at least get into a Super Bowl,” Butler said in an interview with the Post-Gazette. “But we weren’t quite good enough. Kansas City was faster than we were. We weren’t going to make it.”
The Steelers have indicated to senior defensive assistant/secondary coach Teryl Austin he would be in line to succeed Butler, but no determination has been made at this point.
Butler joined Bill Cowher’s staff as linebackers coach in 2003 and remained in the same role when Tomlin took over as head coach in 2007. He was promoted to defensive coordinator in 2015 when the Steelers decided not to retain his mentor, Dick LeBeau.
“I really enjoyed working under him, to see what he did, all the stuff he did,” Butler said of LeBeau. “All his defenses were sound. I tried to implement them as much as we could.”
But, for most of Butler’s tenure as defensive coordinator, the defensive signals were called almost entirely by Tomlin — a practice that actually began when LeBeau was still around.
Butler, who worked with Tomlin at Arkansas State and Memphis, understood the arrangement, but would have preferred to call his own plays.
“I would have liked to do them myself, sure I would,” Butler said. “I think everybody would. But Mike’s the head coach. He can do what he wants to do.”
Butler played 10 seasons with the Seattle Seahawks and began his NFL coaching career with the Cleveland Browns in 1999.
As the Steelers’ coordinator, the team ranked fifth in the league in total defense in 2017 and 2019. In 2016, the Steelers advanced to the AFC championship game before losing to the New England Patriots, a game in which Tomlin called all the defensive signals.
But Butler won a Super Bowl in 2005 with Cowher and another in 2008 with Tomlin. He went to a third Super Bowl in 2010, but the Steelers lost to the Green Bay Packers.
“I don’t have any plans to coach anywhere else,” Butler said. “Nineteen years here, obviously, the three Super Bowls we went to were the highlight. I won one with Bill and one with Mike. Those were a blast. You can’t beat that.”
