DrDawkinstein

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.

Could stop right there for a lot of these guys. I sure hope none of them have daughters either.

I dont see any (or many) folks condemning or passing judgement on Hairston here. Certainly no one saying he should be cut or in jail. I see waaayyy more people calling the girl all sorts of names and going after her character, wanting her to be counter-sued, etc. No one waiting for any substantiation on that. And given what we've just seen in the Diddy trial, where he was acquitted on most charges EVEN WITH multiple witnesses, piles of physical evidence, video tape, etc... it just shows how almost impossible stuff like this is to convict. Perfect and timely example of how difficult it is for victims of this sort of stuff to ever get justice.

We have 2 ebikes, a family bike that can carry the kid and some cargo and a single rider, small capacity bike (usually for me). The family bike is just "pedal assist" and gets you up to 20mph pretty quickly, but that's where the assist tops out so you'd have to be going downhill to go faster. The single is a Class II and has a throttle and goes up to 28mph. They are definitely way more bike than motorcycle. I get the craze because these things are great for the family to get around the city, and helps us 40-somethings relive our youthful days of the 90s. But what gets me is the amount of families I see riding these things with NO HELMETS. I'm a cusp GenXer and grew up before the helmet craze so never wore one growing up, and wasnt a huge fan of the idea going into it. But now, with so much to lose, and how dangerous it can be out on the streets with drivers... It blows my mind that people arent wearing them. I saw a family go by the other day, mom and 2 kids on back, zero helmets... I dont see people getting too crazy on them since we have pretty decent bike infrastructure in the city (Atlanta). Bike lanes almost everywhere we want to go, etc. But folks, WEAR A HELMET. As for kids riding the ebikes or electric scooters, no one under 16 should be operating these things on their own. It's more dangerous than being in a car.

It is NOT suspect. He literally had nothing before this so there was no point in a civil lawsuit until now. The bigger timing tip-off is how she went to the police IMMEDIATELY. Even now that they can, I'd be surprised if they did since there were no criminal charges.

In some cases, yes. In others, where the lady isnt able to fight back as much, no. Or some victims are afraid to fight back so they dont end up beaten or killed. There's no way to draw conclusions just from how much they fought back.

Same age bro!

Most DAs only prosecute slam-dunk wins. Cases that are pretty much already solved and guaranteed. They dont want to hurt their win/loss record or be seen as "wasting the taxpayer money", or even worse in small college towns, hurting the beloved football team. Rapes/SAs of this nature, which are basically only "he said, she said" almost never go since the DA cant prove beyond a reasonable doubt what happened. It isnt worth going to trial with such little evidence. Unfortunately. Again, I'm not making any judgements on this situation either way. Just pointing out that we dont (and never will) have enough information to make a true call. Just because no charges were pressed does not mean he is completely innocent and she is a gold digger. Just like I'm not calling for Hairston to be cut from the team or sent to jail. We dont know. We wont know. So we're all better off saving the conclusions on either side.

3 parties with incentives to not prosecute even if he is guilty.

Need more of this, at practice, and apparently on this board...

Given the general police track record all across this country of not believing victims, not properly investigating, and not processing rape kits, I'm not sure how much stock I put into "no charges so therefore completely innocent". And most of that is on regular civilian rapes. When a top athlete in a small college town is involved, they're even more incentivized to sweep it under the rug. That is what hurt Araiza. SDSU and the local police originally swept the whole thing under the rug because SDSU was about to get a bid to join the PAC-12, and they didnt want to hurt the chances with a scandal. So they just ignored her claims. Had they properly investigated it at the time, they could have cleared Araiza and then it all goes away. Sounds like more was done here in the Hairston case, which is good. And most of the stuff is public record now so easier to make a determination. But in general, "the cops didnt press charges" doesnt mean much when it comes to star athlete assaults.

The draft was also 12 rounds and there was no salary cap, or even free agency really, so that helped a lot too But it was a very special team. I was lucky enough that my dad, who had just lived through the tough Bills times of the 70s and early-80s, would always tell me after any/all of those miraculous 90s performances: "enjoy every minute of this, and dont get used to it, this is NOT how football teams usually play, this is a once in a lifetime thing." I think that advice helped me hold onto my mental health through the drought, lol.

They always will be. The allure of South Florida life attracts that type.

LMAOOOOO Well, any concern I had about the Dolphins getting better with Fitzpatrick over Ramsey has been wiped out with this move. Still the same old clown show.

It seems the only reason Grier has survived to this year is so Ross can fire/rehire the GM and HC at the same time.

There is no elite boundary corner in this specific discussion tho. Ramsey is old and washed.

I'd rather have Ramsey on the Dolphins than Fitzpatrick. Josh shreds Ramsey. Fitzpatrick is a very competent player.

Great take and insight and something I hadnt thought about before. The timing was lost in my childhood memory and I hadnt realized it occurred on the path to our first SB. Totally agree.

Lawrence and Tua. Without a doubt. I dont even consider many of the other guys mentioned here since they are more rentals (Geno, Darnold) than long-term, mega-million signed ("Franchise") QBs. I'd put Dak right behind them. He's better than them, but paid much higher. Then Purdy right behind Dak. I can put Kyler on that list too, but at least I've seen flashes from him. Baker deserves way more respect and should be no where near this list. I'm not even a big fan, and I was a disbeliever when he came out. But I'll never forget that Rams win he pulled off after having joined the team merely 48 hours earlier. And dude has been solid all around. Cleveland messed that up and did him dirty (surprise, surprise).