ZAK Butters rushing back to playing the final game of the 2026 season would contend with Nigel Smart's 1992 barefoot stroll across hot coals as the dumbest act by an Adelaide-based footballer.

Of course the badly banged-up Butters, still hobbling from a syndesmosis injury, wants at least one more game with Port Adelaide. He is a "footy maniac", loves this club and is driven by contest. It's always team-first for Butters, but playing could also prove decisive in him securing a club record-equalling fourth John Cahill Medal. 

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As the two seasons-long speculation around his future nears its final stages, Butters wanting to come back is nothing but a sideshow narrative. A smokescreen, even. The Power No.9 playing against Essendon on the final Sunday of the home and away season, at Marvel Stadium mind you, makes zero sense.

Butters has up to $16 million reasons to not play for Port again this year, with that money spread over eight seasons among the offers that have been thrown his way by Richmond, Collingwood, Western Bulldogs and Geelong.

Those four clubs would be closely monitoring Butters' desire to recover from the foot injury sustained in round 18 in time to return for round 24. It would not surprise me if all four clubs had already contacted his management to say: "Tell Zak he is not to play again this year. All bets might be off if he does."

Imagine he was to play, and re-injure the foot or sustain another serious injury.

It would also make no sense to Port Adelaide to allow him to play. It is still desperately clinging to the two per cent chance the restricted free agent Butters will re-commit, so his welfare beyond the last game of 2026 is far more important to it as well.

And with the Power maintaining it will match any free agency offer accepted by Butters, negotiating a trade would become even more problematic should serious injury need to be factored in.

The competition for Butters’ services has been extreme, and when his new deal is struck, and no matter which club he chooses, he will have a contract in the ballpark of the game’s highest-paid player, Saint Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera.

I understand the way the AFL free agency system works and how clubs need to pay overs to attract certain players. But a $2 million a year deal for Butters will be pitchforking him above many players, in my eyes, who are more deserving of such a deal.

Yes, he is a team-culture shaper, and yes, he has as much courage as Michael Voss, Glenn Archer and Joel Selwood combined. But I have always taken points off for his failure to kick goals, like the true greats of the game.

Butters has kicked 73 goals from 156 matches in eight seasons with the Power. And he’s managed just six goals from his past 41 games.

There have never been half-measures in Butters' football life, a quality again evidenced in the manner in which he sustained the syndesmosis injury – a needlessly brave attempt at spoiling a mark by Saint Max Hall, an action which left his body vulnerable to multiple forms of damage, his right foot buckling underneath his own bodyweight.

He ramped up his running training last week. The Port Adelaide website on Tuesday afternoon said: "Zak Butters is continuing to progress well in his ankle rehab, with the midfielder hoping for a round 24 return to play". It suits Butters and everyone at Port Adelaide to be pushing for this potentially final match in Port colours in round 24.

It is the footy romance storyline. The kid drafted in 2018 who has bled for the black, white and teal on 156 occasions, and wanting to do so for a 157th. 

The footy reality storyline has four clubs not caring for the romance. It is business for them. And they don’t want their potential asset exposed to unnecessary risk.

Expecting reality to bite.

X: @barrettdamian