McDermott/Beane press conference 8/27: Matt Araiza released

[TSOL]

12 minutes ago, cd1 said:

 

 

 

Too soon dude, too soon. 

[CSBill]

11 minutes ago, cd1 said:

 

 

Let's not kid ourselves, in the eyes of the national media, and the general public outside of WNY, the Bills and the Browns are now the same thing.

[oldmanfan]

1 hour ago, CSBill said:

 

Let's not kid ourselves, in the eyes of the national media, and the general public outside of WNY, the Bills and the Browns are now the same thing.

Oh please.  We released Arizia; the Browns are paying Watson a guaranteed 200 some million.

Edited August 28, 2022 by oldmanfan

[UKBillFan]

Just now, oldmanfan said:

Oh please.  We released Arizia; the Browns are paying Watson a guaranteed 209 some million.

Oh please. We released Araiza because he was ‘only’ the punter. Do you honestly think we would have cut Josh in the same circumstances?

[oldmanfan]

Just now, UKBillFan said:

Oh please. We released Araiza because he was ‘only’ the punter. Do you honestly think we would have cut Josh in the same circumstances?

Probably not.  But I believe we might have suspended him while things were investigated.  I would have preferred that in the Araiza case but apparently that was not a choice because the incident was before he was on the team.

[UKBillFan]

2 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

Probably not.  But I believe we might have suspended him while things were investigated.  I would have preferred that in the Araiza case but apparently that was not a choice because the incident was before he was on the team.

And if something came up from Josh’s college days, so the exempt list wasn’t an option?

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

6 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

I still don’t understand why the Bills didn’t ask for a copy of the draft compliant.  Could have solved a lot of problems.  Or could have allowed them to say that Ps attorney sandbagged them.  

why did the Ps attorney contact the Bills before filing the complaint? What would be the purpose of that? 
 

[oldmanfan]

2 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

And if something came up from Josh’s college days, so the exempt list wasn’t an option?

Hypothetically if he raped a girl I’d cut him.  I ‘d be enormously sad but ultimately football does not trump crimes.

[loveorhatembillsfan4life]

Am I the only one that finds it wierd that this girls attorney tweeted that maybe with a donation and apology, maybe Matt is still playing football? 
 

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by loveorhatembillsfan4life

[LeGOATski]

6 minutes ago, loveorhatembillsfan4life said:

Am I the only one that finds it wierd that this girls attorney tweeted that maybe with a donation and apolology, maybe Matt is still playing football? 
 

 

Nope. It's weird. The lawyer would certainly love that because it would hand him the victory in the case.

[Giuseppe Tognarelli]

24 minutes ago, CSBill said:

 

Let's not kid ourselves, in the eyes of the national media, and the general public outside of WNY, the Bills and the Browns are now the same thing.

This makes literally no sense

18 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

Oh please. We released Araiza because he was ‘only’ the punter. Do you honestly think we would have cut Josh in the same circumstances?

People making this point are really silly because it's completely hypothetical and the Bills haven't given you an indication one way or another. In fact, if anything, they've given you indication that the result would be the same.

 

I feel like people just want to be upset

[UKBillFan]

21 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

Hypothetically if he raped a girl I’d cut him.  I ‘d be enormously sad but ultimately football does not trump crimes.

Agreed but not sure if we would have responded in the same way as we have Araiza.

13 minutes ago, Giuseppe Tognarelli said:

This makes literally no sense

People making this point are really silly because it's completely hypothetical and the Bills haven't given you an indication one way or another. In fact, if anything, they've given you indication that the result would be the same.

 

I feel like people just want to be upset

No, just that football is a business and no franchise is classier than any others. It’s all about money and winning at the end of the day. The solution with Araiza was easy because of the position he filled.

[Gunvald's Husse]

20 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

no franchise is classier than any others

But some franchises are definitely less classy that others!

[Fabio9000]

11 hours ago, Cray51 said:

Reporters were annoying the entire press conference.  Constantly trying to get Beane or McD to say something negative about Matt or the accuser.

 

The Bills judged these items to be accusations, they had not reached the point of charges, they did just as much review as any other team in the league, they talked to Matt about this, and they made the decision to move forward.  Does that make them perfect? No.  But reporters almost complaining that they didnt reach out to the accuser when there weren't charges is a joke.  Media looking for a story instead of reporting the one in front of them.

 

Beane sounded genuine to both Matt and the accuser.  It screamed to me "We told Matt if he is truly innocent, go figure this crap out and we will follow the results of the case accordingly".

 

Fair play to the Bills for handling this with class and precision.

I'm with you pretty much all the way, but the words "thorough investigation" were a mistake relative to all of this. If you claim to conduct a thorough investigation of a crime you don't skip talking to the person alleging the crime. That phrase was disingenuous at the very least and dishonest at worst. 

[UKBillFan]

1 minute ago, Fabio9000 said:

I'm with you pretty much all the way, but the words "thorough investigation" were a mistake relative to all of this. If you claim to conduct a thorough investigation of a crime you don't skip talking to the person alleging the crime. That phrase was disingenuous at the very least and dishonest at worst. 

Beane admitted that in the conference - stated it should have really said ‘continuing’.

[Cray51]

2 minutes ago, Fabio9000 said:

I'm with you pretty much all the way, but the words "thorough investigation" were a mistake relative to all of this. If you claim to conduct a thorough investigation of a crime you don't skip talking to the person alleging the crime. That phrase was disingenuous at the very least and dishonest at worst. 

I thought they were clear that they didn’t look at it as a crime.  It was a thorough investigation of an accusation.  Some may bleed the meanings of those works together, but I think the Bills were feeling these were accusations where no crime had been defined because no legal charges had been brought.  Just my opinion though, you could be correct

[wjag]

32 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

Agreed but not sure if we would have responded in the same way as we have Araiza.

No, just that football is a business and no franchise is classier than any others. It’s all about money and winning at the end of the day. The solution with Araiza was easy because of the position he filled.

I don’t disagree with the basic sentiment but watching those two guys you could clearly see the anguish.  I will compare and contrast that with the Browns press conferences where there was no compassion expressed whatsoever.  McDermott was especially anguished.  They’re both fathers and that side came out to me last night.  Their body language said far more than their words.  They were sickened by the whole thing.  

Edited August 28, 2022 by wjag

[Fabio9000]

1 hour ago, Matt_In_NH said:

Not every team does a full deep dive on every player.  In this case beane says he has talked to double digit teams and no one said they knew.  I do think it is possible this was out locally at SDS and could have been known.   But even then you only would have had rumors.  He was worth a 6th round pick.  I am diss appointed we don’t get to see what he could have become but they did the right thing.  

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/8/27/23324566/some-teams-knew-of-matt-araiza-gang-rape-allegations-before-2022-nfl-draft

[Bangarang]

5 minutes ago, Fabio9000 said:

https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2022/8/27/23324566/some-teams-knew-of-matt-araiza-gang-rape-allegations-before-2022-nfl-draft

It’s so annoying when people write clickbait headlines and then contradict themselves in the actual story. 
 

Quote

“Executives from two different teams said they became aware of Araiza’s involvement in an incident during the draft process, but neither person knew the extent of the allegations,” 

 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Bangarang

[stevewin]

7 hours ago, MasterStrategist said:

 

 

3.  Deciding now VS July, to cut Matt: this might have been the part of the press conference I'm leaving most confused with.  Beane said the "boulders" were known in July, but the case obviously had not been filed yet. So when asked what changed between then and now, best he could offer was that it was an "allegation" then and an actual civily suit now.  Which is true.  But something clearly changed their mind on how to move forward, and it couldn't have been just that a civil suit was filed (Bills and Araiza knew that was coming down the pike).  Was it public/media pressure, some detail in the Civil suit, distraction they saw forthcoming for the season, etc (or maybe a mix of some/all of the above).  Bottom line, they don't have all the info yet, and Beane did say they were using as much time as possible to collect more information, so can respect that.

 

I think it probably was some of all of the above that you mention.  Also, with regard to end of July, I can only imagine what the exchange with the psycho lawyer was like, we've all seen how he operates.  Even if he did give details, the Bills at that time were prob like wtf? - then asked Araiza about it, who apparently stuck by his version of the story which obviously didn't have all the same detail. 

 

So at that point it was still Araiza's story vs psycho lawyer's "allegation" - so they continued to "have the back" of the player with the info they had at the time.  I think the civil case made it real - even if the lawyer had mentioned some of the details in July, they could have thought he was bluffing/lying (again dont forget to take into account how this lawyer has presented himself - and that Araiza's story remained unchanged). 

 

Once the lawyer's allegations in July were in an actual civil suit, they were "real" now.  And of course then then it hit the fan and they saw what a sh!tstorm this would be, and frankly at that point probably started doubting Araiza's version - or at least had to be concerned there were elements in the civil case that were very different from his account of what happened.  It then became apparent it would drag out as a distraction and only get worse- and I also think the possibility that it was really true started to weigh more heavily on McD and others. It was simply an untenable situation to try to deal with this, both in the present and who knows how far into the future,  and be 100% committed/focused on football

Edited August 28, 2022 by stevewin