BillsFanSD

We all need to keep in mind that we don't know what the Bills know. I am extremely uncomfortable with Matt Araiza (or any player) being released based on what we know right now. We, the general public, don't even know what Araiza's side of the story even is. None of us can possibly have an informed opinion of whether it's credible, to what degree it conflicts with the version of events laid out in the complaint, whether he's changed his story over time, etc. I can easily imagine a situation in which the Bills had excellent reasons for dumping Araiza. For example, suppose hypothetically that he told them back in July that he never touched Jane Doe and now last week he admits to having consensual sex with her -- I would absolutely be in favor of firing an employee who lied about something like that, or omitted that kind of major detail from his story. These kinds of issues often come down to who you're going to believe, and why take the word of somebody who has already been dishonest with me once? But again, this is just speculation and I have no idea if anything like this happened. Unfortunately, I can also easily imagine a situation in which the Bills made an effort to get their facts straight, decided that there wasn't enough evidence to take any action against Araiza, and then got cowed into doing so by a Twitter mob. I would be disappointed if that's what the Bills did, but a) it's been known to happen and b) I have no idea if that's what actually happened. I argued over the weekend for withholding judgement on Araiza until we had better information. I'm strongly inclined to give the Bills the same benefit of the doubt. They have a pretty good track record and their incentives were aligned correctly. I have no reason to think that they acted improperly, so I'll assume their decisions were reasonable until shown evidence to the contrary.

Kern would obviously be a great choice. We can consider ourselves lucky if we stumble into a pro bowler after this little fiasco. That said, I'm not worried about the position. Pretty much anybody we sign will be an upgrade over Haack. Maybe just not as big an upgrade as what we were reasonably hoping for.

The way this story has been covered by professional journalists has been kind of infuriating. You can tell that none of these people has ever held a job that might require dealing with a situation like this. I work at a public university with a D1 football team. I don't deal directly with student conduct issues, but I'm familiar with how sexual assault allegations and T9 complaints generally are handled on my campus. I do supervise faculty and staff, and I've been involved in terminating people for sexual misconduct ranging from somebody who slept with a graduate students up to somebody who bought illegal drugs for a minor that he was sleeping with (that one involved law enforcement of course). I've also had to navigate a number of sketchy complaints involving somebody being a creep in a manner that doesn't technically break any rules but is still creepy and needs to end. My organization is different from the Bills organization because our union contract is different from the NFLPA contract, and we have some extra restrictions on what we can do as a public sector organization when compared to a private firm. But guys like Fairburn seem to think that people like me are just sitting by the phone waiting for somebody to lodge an accusation so that we can fire people by close-of-business later that day. That's . . . not how these situations work. Any decent employer wants to do right by their employees, which means hearing their side of the story and looking into it before making a decision. That's what "doing the right thing" thing means in this context. People who think this kind of thing is easy haven't been asked to do it.

The story is more complicated than that. The victim claims that she had consensual sex with Araiza. She does not allege that he raped her, or that he was a direct participant in the gang rape -- that occurred later on. It is highly likely that a rape kit will find clear, compelling evidence that Jane Doe was raped, and it might find traces of Araiza's DNA. That doesn't tell us anything incriminating. We "know" that Araiza probably hooked up with Doe, and we "know" that Doe was later raped by multiple assailants who were probably not Matt Araiza. The worst case scenario for Araiza is that the rape kit comes back consistent with that story. The results of the forensics test can really only be exculpatory -- they can't make things worse for him. Araiza is in trouble because of two specific allegations. (1) Doe sort of thinks that Araiza might have tampered with her drink. That is a huge, massive deal, but if you read the complaint you'll see that she really only vaguely waves in the direction of this argument. I don't know that she's really raising this allegation with any level of seriousness. (2) Doe says that Araiza led her into a room where he knew or should have known that she would be raped. Again, this is an extremely serious allegation that should lead to prison time if true. I do not want this guy on my team if either he did either of these things. But no rape test can possibly resolve either claim.

The old guy could have been a serial killer who murdered children at halftime. That still doesn't have anything to do with the guy who replaces him.

So what? It's not the new guy's fault that the prior guy was a jerk.

I'm not being a homer here. No team would cut a player because they once provided beer to a minor. I certainly would not want the Bills to do so, but I wouldn't want any employer to do that either.

Maybe, but if it were me, I would focus on the "gang rape" thing, not the "underage consumption" thing. I mean, really now. Underage consumption? We're throwing that particular stone?

Prosecutors almost never charge statutory rape in cases like this, even in California. It is very difficult to get a jury to impose criminal sanctions on a 21 year old for having sex with a 17 year old. This sort of case either gets ignored altogether (by far the most likely outcome) or pled way down to something like simple assault. Statutory rape laws exist to protect 14 year olds from being preyed upon by grown adults, not kids who are roughly the same age doing what adolescents naturally do. I don't think there are any professional sports teams that would discipline a player for something like this. If that's all it was, this wouldn't even be a story and Araiza would be punting for us without controversy.

Giving an underage kid a beer isn't a very bad thing. It's like the least bad illegal thing that a college student might do. I'm happy that Araiza is gone because I'd prefer not to have a rapist on the team. I would be happy with him being a Bill if all he did was give out beer to high schoolers. Come on now.

Backlash over what? Araiza isn't on the team.

Ah, there we go. I guess that's it then.

This story broke on Thursday afternoon. They had a game on Friday. Today is Saturday. What did you expect?

Or maybe they know something you don't.

Huh. I actually expected Araiza to get cut today after not dressing yesterday. Maybe the Bills are sticking with him after all.

"This is slighly skeevy" is not a reason to release a player. When people focus on this particular aspect of the story, it tells me that they made up their mind 48 hours ago and are now just looking for reasons to support the conclusion that they lept to. If this entire story was just "Matt Araiza hooked up with a 17 year old when he was in college," it would not be a story.

It's technically a crime because California's law is weird. Nobody (I think) has any actual objection to a 21 year old hooking up with a 17 year old. That sort of relationship would be legal in most states, including New York. My own daughter was 17 not that long ago. If she had a consensual hook up with a college guy, I wouldn't have been happy about it or anything, but it wouldn't occur to me to want the guy prosecuted. Age of consent in my state is 16 so it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I don't want the Bills disciplining a player, employee, volunteer, intern, or anybody else just because they technically broke a law in some other state that doesn't make any moral sense to begin with. Let's stick to the "drugging her drink" and "setting her up to get raped" part -- that's what's important here.

Okay, this is getting weird now.

Hypothetically? I can imagine a situation in which Araiza is confronted with this allegation a month ago. He tells the Bills that nothing happened with him and Jane Doe -- she showed up, he saw she was drunk, he put her someplace where she could sleep it off, and he left. That's it. Then 48 hours ago the Bills learn about the pretextual calls . . . Obviously this is just my imagination. Nobody in this thread has any idea what the Bills knew then or what they know now, who told what to whom, etc. But if you work in a job that involves managing people, you know that folks sometimes tell stupid lies when they get in hot water. Maybe Araiza did that and maybe he didn't. Who knows.

I've followed this thread pretty closely (too closely) and I don't think anybody is disputing any of this.

I don't see the phone call as meaning anything. The phone call is completely consistent with the story that he had consensual sex with Jane Doe. That's fine. I really want to know if Araiza a) drugged her drink and/or b) delivered her to people who he knew were going to rape her. Those are huge, massive deals that warrant prison time. Just having consensual sex isn't, even if the girl was 17 and even if Araiza had an STD.

My personal guess (it's just a guess) is that the Bills have already spoken with other people who were there. I assume any competent PI would do that as his or her first or second order of business. In other words, I think this is probably information that the Bills already have. To be clear, that is not my position. My personal burden of proof for things like this in an employment contest is something like "clear and convincing evidence," not "beyond a reasonable doubt." I can imagine a scenario in which Araiza is found not guilty by a jury and I'd still want him cut anyway. Maybe not the most likely scenario, but it's plausible.

Well, for one, we can hear the accounts of other people who were at the party. Again, this isn't just speculation, like "Well, I don't know, maybe another accuser or a mystery witness will come forward." We know with 100% certainty that there were other people there, some of whom were friends with the plaintiff. I would like to hear from them before making any decisions. I think we've reached the point where I should note that I can tell you exactly what would convince me that Araiza should be released: corroborating testimony from one or more witnesses*. What could happen that would convince you that Araiza should stay, and why are you so eager to make a snap decision now instead of waiting to see if that comes to pass? * There's other stuff too of course, like a rape kit that shows GHB in Jane Doe's system and credible evidence that Araiza served her. But I have no idea if police have that information and I wouldn't expect it to be publicly released just to make life easy on the Bills. Probably the Bills already know what the witness testimony is going to be, though, which is why I'm focusing on that.

Nobody is saying that Matt Araiza has a constitutional right to punt for the Buffalo Bills. We're saying that it would be stupid, short-sighted, and contrary to the team's best interests to make any decision, one way or the other, without at least a little more information that what has been made publicly available. There is no harm whatsoever in waiting a few days.

At this point, though, the accusation is baseless. Or at least it's baseless from our point of view. Jane Doe had friends at the party in question who can back up her claim or undermine it. The police have probably talked with those people. Both sets of attorneys definitely have. The Bills almost certainly have. Everybody connected to this case knows what those young women will testify to. We don't. What possible reason could any of us have for not wanting to wait to hear what they have to say? If Jane Doe's friends agree that Araiza was there and he led Doe back to the room where she was attacked as she described, then this is an easy call -- cut him and be done with it. But why make that call now when we know there are people sitting right there who can provide valuable information one way or the other?