BillsFanForever19

Judging from this one, your posts were probably deleted because you can't make a point without using offensive, derogatory verbage.

There wasn't. According to the rules of the Exempt list, if the incident occurred before you became a member of the NFL and before you've played a game in the league, you cannot be put on the Exempt list. Our options were to keep him or cut him. I thought that was a terrible technicality and another shame in a list of damn shames in this situation.

No, we don't. He's a Punter. We aren't going to cut Sam Martin and eat a 2.4 million dollar cap hit AND pay Matt Araiza on top of it for the Punter position. We aren't going to carry 2 Punters on the 53. The league isn't going to give us an exemption. Even if they did, we wouldn't be interested. Punter is covered. Matt Araiza wouldn't want to come here where the position is covered, even if we wanted to. There is NO scenario where Matt Araiza will be a Bill and we "fix it". Fixing it would require us fixing the Araiza "injustice" and do an injustice to Sam Martin in return. Spin it any way you want, it doesn't make sense for the Bills or Araiza at this point. What's done is done.

You'll have to go back in time. Convince Beane to keep him on the roster and deal with the distraction all season. Then convince him to sign someone lesser than Sam Martin in the interim, who would perform in an uninspiring fashion to not warrant a second contract. Then convince him to not sign Sam Martin to a 3 yr/6m contract with a 2.4m Dead Cap hit in Year 1. Then convince him to activate him and play him with the Civil suit and the plaintiff's attorney claiming his alibi is bs still looming over his head. Short of that, Matt Araiza will not be a Bill. Good luck to you though! Safe travels, tell me how it works out.

This is another thing I was going to talk about. Everything being discussed in this thread was from the District Attorney's office regarding not pressing criminal charges. The civil case has not gone away. The plaintiff's attorney is claiming that Araiza being cleared is from a friend providing an untrue alibi. That may be bs from a money chasing attorney. But until there is definitive proof in the form of video or geolocation exonerating him, those fears that it may be true will still exist amongst teams. The civil case still exists. Until it is dropped or he is found innocent, a team isn't going to touch him. Just as the court of public opinion found him guilty, all that's happening right now is the court of public opinion finding him innocent. A team isn't going to risk signing him and then he's found guilty or liable in the civil case. From a legal standpoint, not much has changed right now. And that's a massive factor in him being unemployed.

Because it's offensive, demeaning, derogatory language. Simple as that. You want to say she lied because it can be factually proven? Fine. You want to say her behavior on the videos collected by the prosecution was promiscuous? Fine. But calling women "sluts" and "whores" is unnecessarily vile verbage that makes you look hateful and at the very least, disrespectful towards women. No need for that garbage. If you were raised right, I'd dare you to throw those words around freely around your mother.

I do agree he is more likely to be on the 53. However, Beane talking about how he would be used doesn't guarantee he won't be put on the Practice Squad or that he will dress on Sunday's. I recall Beane talking about how TJ Yeldon, Matt Breida, and Duke Johnson could be theoretically used too, after bringing each in. Beane brings in the personnel, McDermott and the coaches decide who will dress.

Yes, it would be. The language being used in this thread is abhorrent. Two wrongs don't make a right. Women should never be referred to as the words being used by others. I'd also like to add that just because she was extremely promiscuous throughout the night doesn't mean she still couldn't have been raped later in the night. Acting promiscuous early in the night doesn't mean whatever happened later in the night was something she wanted. She was covered in bruises and marks and had a kit done that showed abuse. Acting promiscuous doesn't mean that anything that happens to her is fair game. Holy crap. Are you seriously comparing a player DYING on the football field to a player being released for, at the very least, being a massive distraction and essentially lying on their resume by withholding information Pre-Draft? Absolutely ridiculous.

Yes, it would have. But the rules in place didn't allow for that. And the NFL doesn't make up rules and systems on the spot for certain situations that arise. Even if they should have. If the NFL wouldn't do that, they certainly aren't going to make up some special "player who was released for a situation that was untrue" roster exemption rule that a certain poster wants to happen.

An unfortunate technicality made him exempt from qualifying for the exempt list. If your transgression happens before you are employed by an NFL team and you're a rookie who hasn't played in the league yet, you can't be put on the NFL Exempt list. Our options were to keep him or cut him. I thought it was a dumb rule and technicality, but it was what it was.

A couple posters have covered this. And even if it's a technicality in California - it's still not a great look nationwide to have it on public record.

In what scenario does a team carry and pay two Punters for a job one barely does? This "pressure on the league for a roster exemption" and "fans fighting for justice" is so completely asinine. The Bills probably want nothing to do with him. He probably wants nothing to do with The Bills. The Bills aren't going to push for some magical exemption that doesn't exist. We won't carry two Punters. We aren't releasing Martin. Fans getting upset on a Message Board isn't going to make the Bills do anything. I get you're upset, but the situation just is what it is. No amount of being upset by it is going to change anything.

If Araiza was up front about what was going on and didn't hide it, he wouldn't have been Drafted in the first place by the Bills. This was yet another reason they let him go. This was hanging over his head and no one knew about it until it blew up. Then Beane was left holding the bag and looking bad. And it created a massive distraction to the team. The Bills don't owe him anything. Maybe they'll bring him into Camp and "do the right thing" in your eyes if he doesn't get an opportunity. But it would be a hollow invite as he wouldn't be the Punter of this team, unless Martin got hurt. Martin has a 2.4 million dollar cap hit if he's released this season. They aren't going to eat that and pay Araiza on top of it, for a position as negligible as Punter. They aren't going to say "thanks for bailing out Matt, Sam. But he's been cleared and I know we just made a long term commitment to you that you earned, but.... see ya!". I was pumped when we Drafted him too. I bought a "Punt God" shirt from Buffalo Fanatics. Still have it. It's an unfortunate situation all the way around. But Matt Araiza won't be a Buffalo Bill. Here's hoping someone else who has an opening gives him a chance.

Exactly. It's a damn shame that the NFL rules doesn't allow for players coming into the league with transgressions that happened before being Drafted but after being Drafted and before they've played a game the ability to be put on an exempt list. It's a damn shame he was recorded saying the things he said, implicating him to have engaged in, at the very least, statutory rape. It's a shame we were able to get a good Punter in his stead that they re-signed to a long term deal a couple months ago, making his return impossible. But it just is what it is.

Oh crap. That's another thing I forgot about. Thanks for the refresher! The girl was underage. So even if it was consensual, it read as a public admittance of statutory rape and perpetuating underage drinking. There is no coverage in law for "well, he thought she was 18". Or "ya know, things happen in college, I'm sure a lot of players have done this and not gotten caught".

The rush to judgement crowd was on him from the jump. But you're just wrong if you think that being released didn't turn the tide from everyone else. College kid having an STD and telling a girl to get tested for said STD means, at the very least, they did have sex. And in conjunction with the pictures that were released of her state the next day, he looked guilty as sin. That's what ultimately got him released. They were ready to stick by him before that stuff came out. After that, they couldn't.

That's not how things work. The NFL isn't going to make an unprecedented roster exemption because a guy made himself look guilty, got released because of it, and later got cleared. If he is truly as innocent as this makes him appear, a team will sign him. Or they won't. But there will be no league mandates.

If you don't think that recorded conversation by Police of him telling a woman who is claiming that he took advantage of her that he has Chlamydia and she should get tested wasn't the thing that made people believe there may be truth to it, especially after clamming up and hanging up - you're kidding yourself. Before that came out everyone was thinking "we'll see what comes of this". After that was released, he looked guilty.

You keep saying "do the right thing". Like he won't have any other opportunities and he's dying to come back here. If he's as clear as this would make it appear, he'll have a better chance to start elsewhere. We just signed a Punter to a long term 3 year contract. It's a shame that things happened the way they did. But Beane's not going to say "sorry Sam, I know you played well for us last year and you've moved your family up here but we're going to eat a bunch of money and fire you". Whether or not they can prove he was there and whether or not he did do anything, his being recorded telling the girl she should "get tested" is really what destroyed him in the court of public opinion. And the Bills, as well as other teams, may still have a hard time overlooking it.

He's a Free Agent. The league has no say in what team he goes to. He wasn't put on any sort of list. There's no "well, the Bills drafted him so they get first shot at him" rule. Even if we want him, which we won't because we've signed Sam Martin long term, he's free to sign wherever he wants.

You would be surprised the amount of people who look at 48/92 and claim he dropped half of his passes or that all 92 targets were catchable.

The rule that you can't go on an exempt list as a Rookie before you played really annoyed me. He should have been able to be exempt until everything came to light. And since he's been cleared, we could have had him and Martin in Camp this year. Now he'll get a chance to be Punt God on another team when he should have been our Punt God

Oh Thank God, I thought this was going to be another veiled DeAndre Hopkins post.

Yes, you are correct. It was Chicago and not Minnesota. Not sure why my brain mixed them up. I edited the post. I do remember putting Boettger in at Center before in a pinch sometimes within the 2018-2021 seasons. Though as my Minnesota to Chicago brainfart would show, I don't know how well my memory can be trusted. It's hard to find info on what position on the line he played in each snap and game he played. But as this article states, he does have Center versatility. https://billswire.usatoday.com/2023/03/05/buffalo-bills-re-sign-ike-boettger-one-year/

This is simply incorrect. Did he have an issue with drops? Yes. But to look at his targets v. catches is an incorrect metric in gauging his drops. In a vacuum, he had 48 receptions on 92 targets. But to really get an accurate figure, you need to look at his catchable target rate. His catchable target rate was 73.9% Meaning that just under 74% of his targets were deemed catchable. That means he really came down with 48 of 68 catchable balls. Making it 70.5% complete on target. And even that metric doesn't mean he dropped 20 balls. The twenty balls he didn't come down with would include catchable balls being perfectly defended on. He actually dropped 9 of those 20 catchable balls. His drop percentage was 9.7% Nowhere near the 50% many fans would like to claim. And of those 9 balls, it doesn't mean they all just hit him in the hands and he cleanly dropped them. Long story short, he did drop some balls and it wasn't a great season, by and large. I think everyone agrees on that. But this idea that he dropped as many balls as he should have caught simply looking at 48 receptions on 92 targets is an oversimplified, incorrect method to say that he was worse than he was in a hyperbolic fashion. https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/gabriel-davis/ https://buffalowdown.com/2023/02/13/4-players-not-meet-buffalo-bills-expectations-2022/2/