Can Port Adelaide’s Zak Butters win this year’s Brownlow Medal?
Western Bulldogs great Brad Johnson believes he might be leading the race after ten rounds after taking a close look at his season so far.
While he’s currently an $11 chance with Sportsbet - the fifth shortest odds behind Nick Daicos ($3), Marcus Bontempelli ($5), Christian Petracca ($10) and Jordan Dawson ($10) – Johnson believes Butters needs more recognition.
“Can this man win the Brownlow?” Johnson asked on SEN Sportsday.
“He’s not the favourite, he’s about fourth or fifth in the betting.
“I just had a look at things over the whole season, but the last three weeks have just sort of sparked me a little bit, he's got nine votes in three weeks.
“He's had maximum coaches votes in three weeks, he's now sitting equal (with Nick Daicos) because of that on top of the coaches association votes.”
With Butters now equal-first in the AFLCA votes on 51 alongside Daicos, Johnson went through his entire season to figure out how many Brownlow votes he could be on after Round 10.
“I went through his season so far,” Johnson said.
“The last three weeks (he has) nine (votes).
“In Round 7, he was Port's third-best player, so he gets one (vote).
“In Round 6 he was their third-best player, he gets one.
“In Round 5 he was their best so gets three.
“In Round 4 he was second, so he gets two.
“In Rounds 2 and 3 he gets zero but in Round 1 he might get one.
“All of a sudden he could be on 17 votes at the moment.”
With Butters potentially on 17, Johnson also completed the same exercise with the two favourites in Daicos and Bontempelli and found that Butters could be a game ahead of the next best.
“I go, ‘Okay, where's (Nick) Daicos and Bontempelli at?’, that’s at this particular point,” Johnson said.
“Daicos I had at 14 votes at this particular stage of the season, it is a lot of votes and Bont I had at 13.
“I've actually got Butters three (votes) clear, one best-on in front of Daicos.”
While Butters’ performance in the win over Melbourne on Friday was his best of the season, Johnson credited the 22-year-old for his consistency across the season so far.
“His performance on the weekend, 41 disposals, I'm sitting there Friday night and we're going, ‘Wow, look at this, look at this guy’, against the best team on Friday night and the lights are shining,” Johnson said.
“This guy absolutely performed like we've never seen, and I go, ‘What’s his season actually coming together like?’.
“You go back, and he was best-on last week, so it was a build-up to this performance on Friday night from Zak Butters, it wasn't just one out of the blue.
“You go back and look at the rounds and you look at what the other guys are doing in Daicos and Bontempelli because they're the two we've spoken about the most throughout this season so far.
“I think you've got to now put potentially put Zak Butters in front of those two.”
Butters will hope to keep his form up when Port Adelaide faces Richmond at the MCG on Sunday afternoon.
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