BillsFanSD

I don't get the hand-wringing over Howard's cap hit. That was a sunk cost, right? Not a reason to keep a guy around if the coaches felt like Morris was a better option.

I know OJ Howard didn't have a great camp, but sheesh. He's getting beaten out by multiple guys (Sweeny, Morris) who aspire to "journeyman" status.

I was disappointed in 2021 Moss, but he's looked really good this year, he seems to have a clear role on the roster, and I'm pretty sure I'd rather have Moss than Blackshear + a fifth rounder or whatever Moss would fetch. If somebody wants to toss us a third, that's different of course. I'm just reluctant to trade anybody away for future assets when the time for winning is now.

Can you provide a link? The only story I've seen is one that suggests that two teams might have been vaguely aware that there was something about Araiza but had no idea what it was. I haven't seen any stories indicating that any teams knew that he was accused of drugging a girl so that she could raped. Yeah, this is exactly the story I was talking about. It doesn't say that anybody knew these allegations. In fact, it says the opposite.

Miami has already passed them IMO.

I haven't seen any evidence at all that any NFL teams knew about this allegation or that Araiza was connected to it. No team has indicated that they knew about this allegation during the draft. No scouts, no GMs, nobody. Nobody in the media knew anything about it either. If you really think the Bills knew that Araiza was credibly connected to a gang rape and drafted him anyway, I think your priors are way off. I mean, if the Matt-Araiza-set-somebody-up-for-a-gang-rape story was so well known at the time, where were these guys? Why do they hate women so much? Why were they covering for a gang rapist? Why didn't they break this story wide open themselves? (The answer is obviously because this wasn't a story at the time, and this whole line of argument is a hack-ish way of getting another byline or two out of it.)

Breaks my heart to see this happen to such a proud franchise. Just kidding I hope they go 0-17.

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.