Matt Araiza accused of rape, served with a lawsuit.

[Freddie's Dead]

10 hours ago, UKBillFan said:

Or, even though it wasn’t during college days, the likes of Watson and Roethlisberger.

 

A better analogy is Rapeis Winston at FSU, where campus cops and Tallahassee police colluded to delay delay delay, which gave the defense team the time they needed to slut shame and destroy the victim.  We drafted the lookout, Ronald Darby.  Because every athlete having consensual sex needs someone guarding the door. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Freddie's Dead

[GoBills808]

McDermott got the news when we did and reacted like anyone w half a brain would have. Kudos to him.

[iccrewman112]

14 minutes ago, Kmart128 said:

 

If he is found innocent do you think he will want to go to a team that cut him and didnt believe his story? He would probably hatevthe organization for not believing his story and potentially costing him his career.

his actions would have been what cost him his career not the bills if they cut him. There are 31 other teams.

Edited August 27, 2022 by iccrewman112

[Freddie's Dead]

2 hours ago, vincec said:

How can the organization possibly not be to blame? The said that they did a “thorough investigation” and then decided to cut Haack. Now it looks like they were full of crap and just did a cursory investigation before dismissing the issue. Obviously they took it very lightly which was a huge mistake and is frankly unbelievable given the seriousness of the accusations and the current environment with Watson.

 

One thing is clear.  The Bills (and by extension, the rest of the NFL) did not perform due diligence in checking the background of one Matt Arap...err...Araiza.

[wppete]

Where are the Pegulas in this? Where’s Kim Pegula the person standing for women equality. A bunch of hypocrites…. Never thought this Bills regime and owners would let this happen. 

[Motorin']

1 hour ago, UKBillFan said:

If the alleged victim’s attorney was confident of criminal charges he wouldn’t be pushing a civil case. I think the statue is 12 months so he could have held back another eight weeks if the criminal charge was moving at a glacial pace.

 

This is actually doing the Bills a huge favor. Imagine if they waited three months and this didn't come to light until mid-season? The team has time to get right, do what's right, and then focus on the start of the season. 

[BillsfaninSB]

It’s still bizarre they cut Haak.  They may not have had the whole story but it seems they should have had enough  info to push pause.

 

I get Haak was on the bubble no matter what but he still is a serviceable plan B to buy some time and bring in someone else. 

[HalftimeAdjustment]

1 minute ago, wppete said:

Where are the Pegulas in this? Where’s Kim Pegula the person standing for women equality. A bunch of hypocrites…. Never thought this Bills regime and owners would let this happen. 

 

Not instantly taking action before getting enough facts, does not equate to supporting or ignoring rape. I think they will act soon enough.

[GoBills808]

Just now, BillsfaninSB said:

It’s still bizarre they cut Haak.  They may not have had the whole story but it seems they should have had enough  info to push pause.

 

I get Haak was on the bubble no matter what but he still is a serviceable plan B to buy some time and bring in someone else. 

They didn't have anything. They found out when we did.

[nemhoff]

Coach McD has strong character, those who are bitching and moaning about him and his presser have maybe/obviously never been in that kind of leadership position.  To me, he is clearly distressed, hurting, and angry about it.  I believe him when he says that the organization will do the right thing.  He has always been that kind of leader.  And IMO he is a man of his word.

[BillsfaninSB]

1 minute ago, GoBills808 said:

They didn't have anything. They found out when we did.

They knew this was in the works back in July.  I don’t understand your response.  Did I miss something?

[wppete]

Just now, HalftimeAdjustment said:

 

Not instantly taking action before getting enough facts, does not equate to supporting or ignoring rape. I think they will act soon enough.

As an owner in the NFL and self proclaimed womens rights advocate Kim Pegula sat silent on the 24 civil law suits of sexual assault  on Deshaun Watson and as of now is doing the same for a disgusting and horrendous allegation of an employee of hers. Very telling.  Let’s see if she even comments on this. 

[Ross Murdock]

It's all over the media that he's already admitted he had sex with an underage girl. So consent won't matter. Basically he's already committed a crime! I don't understand this discussion at this point? He has to to go, and the Bills need to find a decent punter. When the Colts immediately signed Haack when he was released, I knew there weren't many good punters out there....A punter is not a QB, but they aren't nothing.... Bills need to clean this up pronto! n .   

[GoBills808]

Just now, BillsfaninSB said:

They knew this was in the works back in July.  I don’t understand your response.  Did I miss something?

I don't believe they had anything close to what we now know. McDermott was either unaware or misled as to the seriousness of what Araiza was into. 

[QCity]

15 minutes ago, wppete said:

Where are the Pegulas in this? Where’s Kim Pegula the person standing for women equality. A bunch of hypocrites…. Never thought this Bills regime and owners would let this happen. 

 

[BillsfaninSB]

2 minutes ago, GoBills808 said:

I don't believe they had anything close to what we now know. McDermott was either unaware or misled as to the seriousness of what Araiza was into. 

Perhaps, but the victim’s attorney contacted them 3 or 4 weeks ago.  There was an article in the LA Times reporting about the incident back in June.  Some truly big red flags there.

 

I believe the Bills did not have the full picture until Thursday like all of us but they were clearly ahead of the curve on this.  Cutting Haak is just very strange to me. 

[GoBills808]

1 minute ago, BillsfaninSB said:

Perhaps, but the victim’s attorney contacted them 3 or 4 weeks ago.  There was an article in the LA Times reporting about the incident back in June.  Some truly big red flags there.

 

I believe the Bills did not have the full picture until Thursday like all of us but they were clearly ahead of the curve on this.  Cutting Haak is just very strange to me. 

I think after McDermott's press conference it's very hard to argue that they were ahead of the curve. 

[Freddie's Dead]

1 hour ago, Billznut said:

Araiza is gone, I’d bet my life on it. 

 

$5,000, or it doesn't count.

[Beck Water]

So people have raised the question of "what does McDermott really mean by 'work to do'?  What can the Bills actually investigate?" 

 

There's an article here on the scouting process.  I found it interesting, give it a read if you haven't:

https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-draft-process-requires-teams-to-truly-know-prospects-0ap2000000326374

Quote

Say the word "scout" and most folks think of a stopwatch, a clipboard and a dark film room. The truth is that these days, that all represents just a percentage of the job. One GM estimated that those positions are now 50-50 in terms of doing work on the player vs. the person. The area scout goes further, saying that character assessment "is at least 50 percent of our job."

 

The area scouts are expected to develop background on the draft prospects - what are they like as people, what are they like to coach, are there any red flags? 

Quote

"The expectation is that we know that we've created sources that will tell us as much as we can possibly know about the kid," Schneider said. "You're expected to be the expert in your area."

It can mean knowing a player's high school coach or his elementary school principal. If you're the Southeast area scout, it has to mean having places like Baton Rouge wired. If you're assigned to the Midwest, it's knowing all the ins and outs of spots like Columbus, down to the academic advisors and the trainers and sometimes even the local police.

The truth isn't always easy to come by. Getting there is what counts.

 

Every NFL club apparently has its own boundaries around what behavior from a prospect is a "Hard No".

 

Quote

With some players, teams will advance to the stage of putting their security directors, who are often retired federal agents, on the case, dispatching them to the college cities and hometowns of prospects for further research. The security directors will do things like hit up the area bars and coffee shops to gather local perception and use law enforcement connections to siphon information. Later in the process, the heads of security are often a big part of clubs' draft meetings as players are discussed.

 

Obviously, teams are going to put a lot more effort into players they might draft in the top 3 rounds, than into players they might draft in the 6th or 7th round.  And scouts are going to have better connections at schools they visit all the time, than at lower level programs.

 

So these guys are presumably taking lots of notes as they talk to people.  Young assistants may hang out in bars and talk to students.  But then they got to summarize those notes and boil them down to 2-3 sentences or maybe a para on each prospect's work ethics, personal life, and character.  There's a judgement call: maybe there was talk about wild partying and a couple of women who made sexual assault complaints.  Was there substance to it?  Should they X the guy off the draft board?  And clearly for a lot of teams over the years, the answer to that has been "no" unless the claim was well substantiated - Jameis Winston is one example of that.

 

If it's true that there was talk on the football team about a rape involving 5 members of the football team at a party off campus, that really is the sort of thing the area scout and investigators might have heard, and made notes about, and then reached a judgement whether they were going to take it seriously and write it into their 2 sentence summary on that player.

 

That's one thing the Bills can do - talk to their area scout, have him go back through his notes when he scouted Araiza and see if he had information he made a judgement call not to pass on, but that might have a bearing on what was being said on the team or on campus last October or November.  

 

Likewise, there may have been other summaries from combine interviews not just with Araiza but with coaches.  McDermott and Beane aren't going to get the raw data on late round prospects, they'll get summaries.  So they can go back and look through the raw data here, on an information gathering mission.

 

Then they need to synthesize everything they know together and make a decision.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Beck Water

[Beast]

Pre-season is over and we have the drama of a punter hanging over us heading into what we hope is a special season.

 

A ***** punter.