Bills show what a class organization they are

[syhuang]

7 minutes ago, ganesh said:

 

I agree with it.  The Bills investigation team would have had to have known about it and raised a red flag; may be they raised it and Beane/McDermott ignored it.

 

 

“We did not know about this, and the league did not know about this,” Beane said. “We’ve reached out to I can tell you double-digit teams at this point, and no one had anything on this. These names were sealed, wherever the investigation was at that point. Yes, if we had this, and we get things like this from guys, you know how important the character and the culture is to Sean (McDermott) and me. And anything that would have been lingering, (Araiza) would have been off our board.”

 

Starting at 8:10

 

 

 

[Buffalo716]

6 minutes ago, Putin said:

OJ did it ??? 

Notice I even give OJ respect and I call him alleged.. But he did lose a civil suit.. And he wrote a twisted book called if I did it

 

MA is guilty in the eyes of the public already… We will find out what the actual Justice system says

 

And for the record somebody guilty of a heinous crime like that should Face the highest consequences

Edited August 28, 2022 by Buffalo716

[JOE IN HAMPTON ROADS]

1 minute ago, HamSandwhich said:

This is a terrible precedent for our country. People can and do lie, now anyone can just levy an accusation and it means you lose your job? 
 

Some people suggest that this is a private business, which is true, so they can handle it any way they need to. What if this was you and your job and someone were to hurl an accusation you know you didn’t do and you were let go?

 

I’m not saying he’s innocent or not but we don’t have all the facts. 
 

I hope the Bills know something specific we don’t know and are moving on that. At this point it’s an accusation, and you can accuse a ham sandwich for anything. People here seem to be ok with lively hoods destroyed just for an accusation that may be proven false in the end. Sad state of affairs and actually the opposite of class. Class would have been letting it play out instead of jumping the gun, but here we are in todays backward world. 

According to the lawsuit, MA is on tape with the SDPD admitting to having consensual sex with the girl.  If that is true, and it better be for a lawyer to put their name to it (under penalty of perjury before the Court), then he is in fact guilty, by statute, of rape because she was under 18 and he was over 21.  At that point, he can offer the affirmative defense that he did not know she was underage.  In other words: yes, he is presumed guilty by virtue of the relative ages, and he has to prove his innocence by weight of evidence.

This was actually an easy decision.  

[ExiledInIllinois]

12 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

He did get convicted for other things later though, also was civilly liable.

Yeah, but when you look at Wall... You see 1975, not 1995.

[NoHuddleKelly12]

43 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

The only misstep for me is cutting Haack over Araiza. If they knew this was hanging over the latter, why cut the former when they did?

I wondered about this too, but can only surmise that the Bills knew no matter what, Haack was not going to be suiting up for them anymore—that even if Araiza didn’t work out, they would only consider alternative options to Haack?

[BuffaloBud17]

There were a lot of missteps here. I disagree.

[HamSandwhich]

2 minutes ago, JOE IN HAMPTON ROADS said:

According to the lawsuit, MA is on tape with the SDPD admitting to having consensual sex with the girl.  If that is true, and it better be for a lawyer to put their name to it (under penalty of perjury before the Court), then he is in fact guilty, by statute, of rape because she was under 18 and he was over 21.  At that point, he can offer the affirmative defense that he did not know she was underage.  In other words: yes, he is presumed guilty by virtue of the relative ages, and he has to prove his innocence by weight of evidence.

This was actually an easy decision.  

Even if what you’re asserting is true. What did they actually say? He admits to having sex with her but does he know she’s underage? Is she someone who would lie about her age? Do you think people need to card everyone they have sex with? It’s not that cut and dry and you know that. 
 

Also, you’re never presumed guilty and then have to prove innocence in the court of law. It’s always the accuser that carry’s the weight of proving guilt. 

[Warcodered]

6 minutes ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Yeah, but when you look at Wall... You see 1975, not 1995.

True, I'd bet they plan to just try and slide not including him in the new one under the rug.

[ganesh]

16 minutes ago, HamSandwhich said:

This is a terrible precedent for our country. People can and do lie, now anyone can just levy an accusation and it means you lose your job? 
 

Some people suggest that this is a private business, which is true, so they can handle it any way they need to. What if this was you and your job and someone were to hurl an accusation you know you didn’t do and you were let go?

 

I’m not saying he’s innocent or not but we don’t have all the facts. 
 

I hope the Bills know something specific we don’t know and are moving on that. At this point it’s an accusation, and you can accuse a ham sandwich for anything. People here seem to be ok with lively hoods destroyed just for an accusation that may be proven false in the end. Sad state of affairs and actually the opposite of class. Class would have been letting it play out instead of jumping the gun, but here we are in todays backward world. 

My understanding is that employment is at will and works for both the employers and employees.   Employees quit an organization if they don't like it or found a better opportunity.  The Employer has the same power to do the other way.  At the end of the day, Companies are NOT courts.  

 

I agree that the Bills now know more critical information (May be Matt's has confessed to them that he did have sex and raped the girl, but that he and his friends thought she was eighteen !!!).   May be that is what helped them to close the deal on his release.

[Ethan in Cleveland]

I'd give them an A minus. I I beleive them that they did not know anything at the time of the draft. I still beleive MA told them his side of the story and they never knew the horrific nature of the crime. No way did they do a "thorough" investigation. That is my only issue. That statement was nonsense and made the matter worse.  As I posted earlier, what are they supposed to do? The victim is not going to talk to them and the police are under no obligation to share any information.  They should have said they made the decision with their understanding of the facts at the time. 

I'm proud they got rid of him as quickly as they could. 

I hope justice prevails. If MA's involvement is found to not be criminal and he can resume his career I'm still fine cutting him now. Bills drafted him with what they knew, they cut Haack at the time with what they knew, and now they are making the best decision in the moment. If they turn out to be wrong so be it. It's a job not a court. 

 

On another note, I still want to know if SDSU impeded the investigation and why it is taking so long for police/DA to make a decision to charge MA mad others.

[K-9]

23 minutes ago, JOE IN HAMPTON ROADS said:

Unless, based on the new information they have, they believe MA is destable human being.  In that case, the classy thing is to cut him, even though they just built the punting game around his leg.

I submit that the punting game is built around much more than the punter’s leg. 

[Mango]

58 minutes ago, Buffalo716 said:

The bills kept Tyrel Dodson after he was accused and arrested for domestic violence

Really glad Brandon Beane did what was best for Matt Araiza tonight….

 

 

[HiMark]

56 minutes ago, Warcodered said:

He went on to the exempt list and plead to a lesser charge.

I am glad we cut him, right move, but would still like to know whether Commissioner's exempt list was even an option?  Didn't come up in the NFL discipline articles.

[chongli]

57 minutes ago, UKBillFan said:

 

As you say, perhaps they decided there were enough free agent punters and those who will appear on waivers that we considered ourselves in a better position cutting Haack whatever the outcome with Araiza.

 

Well Indy apparently didn't think there were better free agent options available, but who knows what their thought process was.

Edited August 28, 2022 by chongli

[Mango]

24 minutes ago, syhuang said:

 

 

“We did not know about this, and the league did not know about this,” Beane said. “We’ve reached out to I can tell you double-digit teams at this point, and no one had anything on this. These names were sealed, wherever the investigation was at that point. Yes, if we had this, and we get things like this from guys, you know how important the character and the culture is to Sean (McDermott) and me. And anything that would have been lingering, (Araiza) would have been off our board.”

 

Starting at 8:10

 

 

 

To be clear, when he says this it means that  the coaching staff at SDSU did not mention it to them at all. Students on campus across the athletic department knew about it. Coaches had to know about it. 
 

So they either totally omitted it in conversations or nobody spoke to them.

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

12 minutes ago, HamSandwhich said:

Even if what you’re asserting is true. What did they actually say? He admits to having sex with her but does he know she’s underage? Is she someone who would lie about her age? Do you think people need to card everyone they have sex with? It’s not that cut and dry and you know that. 
 

Also, you’re never presumed guilty and then have to prove innocence in the court of law. It’s always the accuser that carry’s the weight of proving guilt. 

This is verbatim from the victim’s complaint (they don’t quote the call):

 

15. The pretext call with Araiza occurred the following day, October 28, 2021, at
approximately 8:15 p.m. During the call, Araiza confirmed having sex with Doe, even telling her that she should get tested for STDs. When the detectives heard this, they instructed Doe to say,
"Wait, what std?" Araiza told Doe that he had tested positive for chlamydia, at which time Doe was instructed to say, "So you know what to get tested for Ok, that makes me feel a bit better." To cement the criminal case against Araiza, the detectives asked Doe to ask again, "And did we have actual sex?" The detectives knew that asking such a direct question like this might raise red flags for Araiza, which they tried to manage by telling Doe to ask the question "When you can bring it up
 again." As expected, however, when Doe asked the awkward question, Araiza immediately changed his tone, saying, "This is Matt Araiza. I don't remember anything that happened that night," at which time he terminated the pretext call by hanging up on Doe.

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

People need to stop with the predraft stuff, its been overwhelmingly confirmed that it was not known predraft by the Bills, the NFL, or other teams.  

 

This is the stuff that drives me crazy...no disrespect Dingus, I really mean no disrespect.  But people keep saying things like this that cause false information to persist. I get you may not have been privy yet to these facts, but its a dead issue...no one knew before the draft, and according to Beane neither Matt or his agent even knew until this summer about it or the potential civil case.  And that is because the criminal case had not even gotten started yet, so there had been no authorities or anyone contacting Matt either prior to the civil matter getting started.  

The criminal case began the day after the alleged rape.  9 days later the cops were taking a pretext call to Araiza.

 

The Bills firing was inevitable.  The Bills knew a civil suit was coming weeks ago.  Their “thorough investigation” would have made them aware of many of the details of the suit.  Yet the still did nothing, other than cut last year’s punter. 
 

Then, after a massive and predictable PR disaster follows once the public is aware of what the Bills already knew about this whole thing, and with no new info….they cut him.

 

Real class.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Mr. WEO

[HiMark]

8 minutes ago, ganesh said:

My understanding is that employment is at will and works for both the employers and employees.   Employees quit an organization if they don't like it or found a better opportunity.  The Employer has the same power to do the other way.  At the end of the day, Companies are NOT courts.  

 

I agree that the Bills now know more critical information (May be Matt's has confessed to them that he did have sex and raped the girl, but that he and his friends thought she was eighteen !!!).   May be that is what helped them to close the deal on his release.

Employment is "at will" in NY, BUT, if you state any reasons why you are firing a person, then you have given the person some ground s on which to sue you--whether solid grounds or not.  This is, IMO, what led to the semi-sudden end of their presser; a journalist asking him "So you've been advised by the Bills (attourneys) that there are things you shouldn't adress?"  Beane: "Yes." And then he gets up and leaves.

[Arkady Renko]

1 minute ago, HiMark said:

Employment is "at will" in NY, BUT, if you state any reasons why you are firing a person, then you have given the person some ground s on which to sue you--whether solid grounds or not.  This is, IMO, what led to the semi-sudden end of their presser; a journalist asking him "So you've been advised by the Bills (attourneys) that there are things you shouldn't adress?"  Beane: "Yes." And then he gets up and leaves.

And “at will” is not really the situation when you have a CBA.  

[Mango]

6 minutes ago, Mr. WEO said:

The criminal case began the day after the alleged rape.  9 days later the coke were taking a pretext call to Araiza.

 

The Bills firing was inevitable.  The Bills knew a civil suit was coming weeks ago.  Their “thorough investigation” would have made them aware of many of the details of the suit.  Yet the still did nothing, other than cut last year’s punter. 
 

Then, after a massive and predictable PR disaster follows once the public is aware of what the Bills already knew about this whole thing, and with no new info….they cut him.

 

Real class.

I keep coming back to the repetition of “this is what is best for Matt”.