Darn those Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs.

They drove the New England Patriots to bring back Malcolm Butler.

You’ve gotta love it. The topsy turvy world of the NFL just keeps getting more bizarre.

We woke up Wednesday, and cornerback Malcolm Butler is a figure from the Patriots past and Tyreek Hill is a Kansas City Chief wide receiver and one of two favorite targets of quarterback Pat Mahomes.

We went to bed Wednesday night, and Hill is a Miami Dolphin whom the Patriots will have to figure out a way to defend not once, but twice next season. And now they may be doing it with Butler.

March Madness, for certain.

Of course, the grousing will continue that the Patriots just aren’t in the business of acquiring stars while their AFC East rivals, Miami and the Jets, were lining up to grab Hill.

You can pretty much safely say that as long as Bill Belichick is in charge of the football operation, they won’t trade five draft picks for a player and give him a record contract.

Unfortunately for the Patriots, the rest of the NFL, it seems, isn’t going to make the same promise. The rest of the league has been out of control, and we guess you can blame the Rams, whose operating methods of using draft choices as trade capital to acquire stars got them a Super Bowl championship. Meanwhile, the Patriots are lamenting the fact they don’t get any compensatory picks in next month’s NFL Draft.

Of course, we all need to remember the Patriots went out and signed all those veteran free agents a year ago, a record spending spree until what we’ve seen in this month’s League Gone Wild. The problem is, none of them were really of top star quality.

We don’t actually disagree with the idea the best way to build a Super Bowl champion is to do it through the draft. But the idea now is that the league is one big street game. Belichick would always constantly remind us that the game is about scoring points; the problem is, not many have the confidence now the Patriots can do that as currently constituted, or do it as well as the other teams. Of course, Hill will realize once the season starts there’s a big difference between having Mahomes as his QB and, well, Tua Taglaliova.

It’ll be fun having Butler back, for as long as he’s here. It’s no certainty that he’ll even make the team; remember he didn’t play last season, abruptly retiring after signing with Arizona “for personal reasons.”

He’s a polarizing figure in Patriots history, as we remember his being the hero of the Super Bowl win over Seattle when many didn’t even know who he was, and then becoming the great mystery of the Patriots’ abysmal loss Super Bowl loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, in tears on the sideline due to a benching no one has ever explained.

Remember, here in New England, the Patriots under Belichick always do “what’s best for the football team.”

Last year was Patriots Gone Wild. This year, it’s Patriot fans going crazy.

Tom King may be reached @Telegraph_TomK, or tking@nashuatelegraph.com