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Harmon doesn't need explanation why Butler was benched in Super Bowl

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FOXBORO -- Trying to find out why Malcolm Butler played just a single snap in the Super Bowl has been a fruitless and frustrating endeavor. Leads are followed but invariably passage ways lead to dead ends, or doors that get opened have nothing but a brick wall on the other side. 

Bill Belichick has done nothing to shed any light on the decision, despite being asked often including the day before training camp opened. His players -- past and present -- are in the same boat as we are. They haven’t gotten an answer.

And, according to safety Duron Harmon, they don’t need one.

“It’s over with,” said Harmon after the first day of training camp. “I mean it’s all what-ifs now and what-ifs are not going to change anything. So what is the point of going back in the past and trying to go over that and try to find answers when in all reality, it doesn’t even matter anymore in the 2018 season?”

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He’s not wrong. There is no changing what happened February 4th at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The Eagles played a near perfect game offensively en route to a 41-33 victory in Super Bowl LII. But there were a handful of plays that Jordan Richards or Johnson Bademosi couldn’t make that Butler has made before. And maybe it was just that one play that would have turned the game. Butler had no answers following that game and still hasn’t said anything damming since. Harmon believes there is no room to let this question linger.

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“You just gotta look at what you want to accomplish this year,” Harmon told me. “We know we want to play good football and be in a position at the end of the year to play more games in the winter. So looking at (the Butler situation), that doesn’t have anything to do with that (playing well this year). Malcolm has moved on. He’s with the Tennessee Titans now and it’s time we do the same (and move on).”

Harmon didn’t sound caution alarms about what would happen if the Pats don’t find a way to get past it, but this is a long season with pitfalls around every corner. He doesn’t want his teammates to waste energy on anything other than playing ball and stacking one day on top of the next, just like always.

“You’re looking at a tunnel and you can’t even see the light right now.”

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