{"id":967047,"date":"2026-08-07T22:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/967047\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:09:12","slug":"patriots-sign-s-eric-butler-release-dt-david-blay-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/967047\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots Sign S Eric Butler; Release DT David Blay Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 The New England Patriots announced today that they have signed rookie free agent S Eric Butler from San Diego State. In addition, the Patriots released rookie free agent DT David Blay Jr.<\/p>\n<p>Butler, 23, played in 48 games during his college career and finished with 119 total tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble and 1 interception that he returned for a touchdown. The 6-foot-2, 195-pounder, also blocked two punts while in college.<\/p>\n<p>Blay, 23, was signed by New England as a rookie free agent from Miami (Fla.) on May 8, 2026. The 6-foot-2, 292-pounder, played at West Chester (2021-22), Louisiana Tech (2023-24) and Miami (Fla.) in 2025. Overall, he played in 46 games during his college career and finished with 129 total tackles, 11\u00bd sacks, 1 pass defensed and 1 forced fumble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 The New England Patriots announced today that they have signed rookie free agent S Eric&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,1263,1264,6,3571],"class_list":["post-967047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-football","tag-hp-article","tag-hp-featured","tag-nfl","tag-transactions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117056514492487555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}