DrDawkinstein

I'm obviously being a bit hyperbolic. I get the need. I just dont see it as big of a deal as so many other posters/fans who want to overly criticize him on it, since we can work around it in others ways.

Maybe not. But plenty of us also said he'd never be able to run anyone over with his size/frame, and then he changed that last year. He's only 25 and still filling out. Might happen. (Might not).

Let the D know that he is going out as a receiver. Then they have to cover him with someone and it's one less pass rusher. Blocking by receiving. Or leave him open and let Josh dump it to him with 7 yards of open field in front of him. See how that goes.

Agreed. This is still kinda a popularity contest and he is a bit of an unsung hero. Plus there are just soooo many CBs. I dont want him blocking. Leave that to our elite OL and Josh's scrambling skills. I want Cook squeaking out of the backfield so Josh can dump it him in space and let his speed and agility gash the D for 10 yards a pop. That will slow any rush better than a blocking RB.

I literally *****king disclaimed this in the first ***** paragraph

Oof, dont lump me in with that crowd. Point taken. I'm done. All of my previous posts in here still stand.

My man. Did you miss the entire first paragraph where I literally said "bear with me" and "thought exercise" etc etc???? In order to have the philosophical discussion @SoCal Deek was looking for, you MUST make an assumption of judgement one way or the other. Otherwise, sure, just sit back with the rest of you folks "waiting for more information". But a heads up to that as well, we'll never know more information. This entire thing is he said/she said. That's fair, I dont disagree, and I didnt love doing it either.

Of course it matters. My point (well one of many points) was, even in a "worst case scenario", both parties can come out of it, and fans can move on with their lives.

Bear with me. For the sake of discussion and as a thought exercise I'm going to lay out some stuff, but also make some assumptions. Doesnt matter if the assumptions are wrong as the point is to ultimately provide some perspective and answers... Some things we do know (and some comments in parenthesis): Max was 17 years old at the time of this event. (Most 17 yr olds are not great at impulse control to begin with) Fresh on campus as a highly sought after recruit for a D1 football team. (That hyped up confidence isnt helping the impulse control) There was drinking/drugs involved. (That never helps anyone's decision making or impulse control) He is certainly a personality. (But maybe not as charming as he thinks he is) Now lets just assume (here's the assumptions) everything this young lady alleges is true. Whether you are waiting for more facts to come out or not, for the sake of this post, lets say it all happened. Because frankly, as someone who has been a young, dumb college kid around a lot of athletes and partiers, I can absolutely see something like this happening. Heck, I've probably been 1-2 steps away from it myself... He didnt take no for an answer and got himself into her room. Not violently. He didnt kick the door down. Or threaten her with a gun or knife. But he did force himself into a place he wasnt invited. Some sexual stuff happened even though she told him "no". Again, nothing too violent. He didnt beat her. This is certainly no OJ, or Lawrence Taylor, or even Cornelius Bennett. But it was without her consent and he did it to her body. She filed reports immediately after. Too much "he said/she said" and not enough real evidence, so no charges. She then packs up her life and changes schools. This young lady had her agency taken from her, felt she had to upend her life and change schools (which is no small matter for regular students not getting millions in the transfer portal). Who knows how this threw her own life plans off track. Maybe the new school doesnt have as good of a program for her major. Maybe it costs her more. There are a million different ways this could affect someone in real life, both immediately and for years down the line. Now here we are a few years later. Max just signed a guaranteed $15M+ contract and, if he even has a half-decent first few years, will get another NFL contract when it is up. So we go to civil trial. She is looking for some sort of "justice" or at least some validation and fairness since she had a piece of her taken away that she can't get back, plus whatever BS she had to go through over such a stupid event. Give her $2M-5M. It's a small piece of what he is set to make in his life, and it's enough to set her up for the rest of her life and certainly amend any issues or missteps that this caused. Stash it away as retirement, can draw 2-3%/year and have an extra $75k/yr while not touching the principle. Does it give her her body back? No. Does it help put her life back on the track she likely envisioned the day her parents dropped her off at college and she had her whole future ahead of her? Yeah, I'd say most likely. So there is a the point of what she is doing and why. And here's my bottom line as a fan and even someone who has been an advocate for women in this thread... Even if he does settle or loses the civil trial, I'm not holding it against him. IMO, the offense, while not something I would ever want my son or any man I know to do, isnt so egregious that it makes us into moral hypocrites. Certainly not like many of the other offenses perpetrated by some of our favorite players. He was young, dumb, and made a mistake. She is a victim and deserves some satisfaction. It wouldnt take too much to make that right, and not have to ruin his future either. I hope justice truly prevails and these young adults go on to both live happy lives. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Love to hear good stuff about our team and organization. Very nice of him to say. The cynic in me reads this as "pleeeease give me a job" tho. But hey, if he wants to come in cheap he has to be better than the guys currently at the bottom of our list.

I dont remember all the details/timing exactly, but I think this is different from the previous situation in that all the investigations were completed and cleared this time around. I'm sure Beane, the Bills Legal department, etc could see a civil suit coming. But as long as all the criminal investigations were done and clear, that's about as good as they can get. Previous, I believe MA told the Bills it was all done and nothing was going to come of it, only to find the investigations weren't complete and stuff was still lingering and popped back up (which was a surprise to the Bills), and some of the details were new info to the Bills as well. IIRC. There was definitely more that the Bills were directly peeved with the player about.

Yeah, its in the docs and transcripts. I'm not going to re-litigate it here because Im already walking the line of what mods will remove in this thread. But the info is out there. It's just an example.

Im surprised we've managed to keep it to just this thread for so long. Usually we have a number of spawns at the same time on the Cook issue. We need 5 more Cook threads on the front page asap!

Save your hope. Absolutely not worried about it. At all. And neither should you. As @boyst pointed out, 1/3rd of all women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their life. On the flip side, of the small subset of men even accused of rape, only 2-5% are deemed falsely accused. So 33% of all women vs... what... 0.001% of all men. You're on the wrong side of the problem. And even if you count situations like Araiza's as being "falsely accused", dude still knowingly gave the girl an STI. Scumbags be scumbagging. Raise better boys.