Best inside linebacker: Butler?

With the start of the first three-day draft in NFL history a week away, here’s a different take on University of Washington linebacker Donald Butler. Very different.

Russ Lande of War Room Scouts rates Butler as the top inside ‘backer in this year’s draft class – ahead of Florida’s Brandon Spikes, Alabama’s Rolando McClain and Missouri’s Sean Weatherspoon – and projects that Butler will be a first-round pick.

“Butler probably won’t be drafted as highly as we have him rated, but in time he will become a very good starting linebacker,” Lande wrote in his draft prospect analysis of Butler in today’s online edition of Sporting News Today.

Lande also calls Butler a “tough, instinctive, highly productive defender who is consistently around the ball making plays.”