You can talk when you stop posting pictures and laudatory posts about Hill. Otherwise save it.
Matt Araiza Cleared of Gang-Rape at SDSU; Signed by Chiefs
- Thread starter sodenj5
- Start date
- Status
i just remembered something.
Since like 2014 the NFL has been running those “no more” PSA’s about domestic violence and sexual assault. The way the NFL has handled the Watson and Araiza cases (and thats just two examples) shows you how “serious” the league takes these PSA’s (IOW they dont give a shit and these PSA’s seem to have been nothing but bullshit to appease its “sponsors”)
https://nomore.org/campaigns/public-service-announcements/nflplayerspsa/
Since like 2014 the NFL has been running those “no more” PSA’s about domestic violence and sexual assault. The way the NFL has handled the Watson and Araiza cases (and thats just two examples) shows you how “serious” the league takes these PSA’s (IOW they dont give a shit and these PSA’s seem to have been nothing but bullshit to appease its “sponsors”)
https://nomore.org/campaigns/public-service-announcements/nflplayerspsa/
I think we’ve seen significant evidence at this point that the NFL does whatever it thinks is best for the league. Having guys like Watson or Roethlisberger or Hill or Lewis playing is good for the league (in it’s opinion). And they judge by game attendance and TV viewership, which continues to remain solid. These acts are serious criminal offenses but local jurisdictions are not motivated to fully investigate/prosecute because we’ve elevated these individuals to hero status and DAs are elected officials. So these guys become nearly untouchable from a prosecution standpoint and we’re expecting their employer (who is benefiting from their employment) to step in and restore the balance? I don’t blame the NFL for all this stuff; I blame the local DA office for not holding these men accountable for their crimes. If a player is in prison, the NFL does not need to suspend him.
Always been my take. Something serious needs to change with prison sentences. This guy and Watson should be doing real time.
It's both, really. The NFL and similar have tons of public sway, in cases where the legal system has less ability to act.
Bills coach Sean McDermott appears to be flailing as he gives the strong impression that the team was blindsided by the details in the civil suit. Which leads to the inescapable conclusion that, as most suspected, the "thorough investigation" was nothing more than asking Araiza whether this was going to be an issue and leaving it at that.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/34465207/sources-matt-araiza-punt-buffalo-bills-preseason-finale-vs-carolina-panthers
Doesn't sound like a man full of confidence in his new punter. Beyond this, McDermott would be well-advised to avoid the grotesqueness of the passive voice and memorize the words "no comment."
My guess - hope, really - is that Araiza is gone shortly.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/34465207/sources-matt-araiza-punt-buffalo-bills-preseason-finale-vs-carolina-panthers
I guess I understand saying that if details are murky and it’s literally a he said/she said situation, but it’s more than that here and he flat out sounds like he believes it happened and he still both sides’d it. That’s a new one.
For guys like McDermott, getting accused of raping someone is just as bad as getting raped, even if you did it.
The sheer normalcy of spiking drinks and raping women in college towns is sickening. Almost every woman who’s spent time in bars has a story.
So many opportunities for so many men in this situation to do the right thing and so many of them have failed utterly.
The sheer normalcy of spiking drinks and raping women in college towns is sickening. Almost every woman who’s spent time in bars has a story.
So many opportunities for so many men in this situation to do the right thing and so many of them have failed utterly.
My god, that word salad from McDermott is so ill conceived and weak. They are completely mangling this. Just. Cut, Him. Immediately. Then all your problems go away. It’s not in any way morally right, but if it were Allen or Diggs, the consternation would be, from purely cold, practical, business standpoint, understandable. But it’s a friggin rookie punter. I don’t care if he can kick it to Mars. How have they not already shown him the door?
The NFL is doing what it thinks it should as a multi-billion dollar business and nothing is going to change so long as everyone keeps tuning in Sunday and Monday and Thursday and Saturday nights and millions of us keep playing fantasy and billions of dollars keep being bet on games and survivor pools.
I mean why should the NFL take any kind of moral stand? It's a business.
Holy shitballs. Thoughts and prayers “for the people involved…both sides”? So we’re praying for all of the ASU rapists too? Yes, it must be oh so terrible to have raped a kid and face consequences. While we pray for this girl who suffered life changing violence, let’s equally sympathize for those young men.
Fuck you Sean.
Fuck you Sean.
This is more preachers department than mine but the problem isn’t the length of prison sentences-the SDSU three and Watson would do real prison time if convicted-the problem is the difficulty of obtaining a conviction. Others know this better than I do (I’ve never personally prosecuted sex crimes) but many jurors, especially older or religiously conservative voters, are unwilling to find a defendant guilty if the women was drinking, was willingly alone in a room with the rapist, consented to any sexual activity but said no, and even, for some jurors, if the women was dressed immodestly or was out alone at night. The values and beliefs that we same to share on this board are just not universally held in our society.
I think it's pretty clear that since they have Superbowl hopes and dreams that they think the guy who can kick it to Mars might just be that extra edge that helps them win a game or two on the way to Arizona. "He's just a punter," yes, but punting is a pretty important part of the game and they've painted themselves into a corner of having to scrape the bottom of the free agent punter barrel. (The guy they cut got swooped up).
Fuck the Bills.
I hear you and I read all about the "Punting God" during the college football season. There were some articles that said he should have been in the running for the Heisman. Yet, he was the third punter taken in the draft. Teams knew.
McDermott clearly used a terrible choice of words and should be vilified for that but at least he had the decency to only talk about the allegations for his 10min presser not switching to the game even when reporters gave him that out. I watched some of it and he was clearly shaken and it is clear he wasn't aware of all the information that has come out. Seems like he might even be a bit at odds with the organization making it clear it was his decision not to let Araiza play last night and not defending the organizational statement. Obviously a lot of stuff he couldn't comment on and some of the comments where clearly rambling but many other HCs would have said no-comment and left it at that. That said Fuck the Bills for drafting this kid and Fuck SDSU and the SD cops for waiting until twitter blew up before taking any meaningful action.
Yeah, this is kind of where I’m at. These clips suggest to me that McDermott was pretty shaken by the whole thing:
View: https://twitter.com/haprusak/status/1563372951852183552?s=21&t=oyyVlla-OYvVZmxZxw8jSQ
View: https://twitter.com/jonscotttv/status/1563372112756125696?s=21&t=oyyVlla-OYvVZmxZxw8jSQ
My wife and I talked about this and about the toxic culture of college football (or football in general). This morning I mentioned how McDermott was playing the "both sides" game and she was incredulous that I was surprised. She was raped by a college football player when she was a freshman. Now, her school is not a football school. It probably isn't even in the top-10 football colleges in the state (granted, it is a southern-ish school, but still). It is an FCS program. Her best friend was the head coach of the team. The school officials and police found out about her relationship with the HC and directed her to him! No investigation, nothing. As a 19 year old rape victim, she did what she was told and met with the coach. His advice was for her to drop it and forget about it because going forward with the accusation would cause more headaches for all involved and it wasn't worth it. And the rapist was a "good kid" and she would be ruining his life.
This whole thing has me thinking about quitting football, once and for all. (I know I probably won't, but fuck it, it makes me feel better in this moment to consider it)
This whole thing has me thinking about quitting football, once and for all. (I know I probably won't, but fuck it, it makes me feel better in this moment to consider it)
i think you’re right, sadly, but this is also the problem. It’s pretty easy (and good business) to have a no rapists rule regardless of the player. The slippery slope argument is almost always conjecture and never materializes. Add that to the fact that the only thing holding owners accountable are the own conscience and a fan base that is happy to look the other way when it’s convenient and the costs associated with cutting Ariaza are even less.
You would think that they’d have a rule that anyone who chokes, beats and punches pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and tosses her “like a rag doll” could be excluded as good business but it just takes one team-in this case the chiefs-and they got a great player cheap and a super bowl. Watson is clearly scum and he got arguably the best contract in the history of the sport.
Maybe the crime is bad enough and the position unimportant enough but im dubious.
Last edited:
This is true but you still need to try. And you need to counter those rape myths at trial and address those counter intuitive behaviors. And if you keep trying, maybe you educate the population a bit more. DA offices can’t be afraid of getting acquittals in these cases. Not trying because it’s difficult to obtain a conviction isn’t the answer. I’ve gotten convictions on pure he said/she said cases (I hate that term). No physical evidence, delayed reporting. But the jury believed the victim. As a prosecutor, if you believe a crime occurred and you believe you have sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction (which may be the testimony of the victim alone), you go to trial.
While i agree somewhat. Look at baseball and the Bauer situation. I mean thats how leagues should handle this shit. Mlb took this shit seriously. NFL continues to not give a shit and will only act when the media pressure becomes impossible for the NFL to ignore
I agree with all of this and wish we had more prosecutors like you. The big point is that the issue here is the will of prosecutors to take difficult cases to trial, not that the crimes in question aren’t serious under the law (although the Watson case does suggest that some kind of penalty enhancements need to be used for serial indecent exposure or unlawful to touching type cases)
I can’t fault the prosecutors without knowing what the victims wanted. Seems to me that the victims’ wishes should take precedence in these cases over more abstract notions of the public interest.
Fair although the fact that in these cases the individuals brought very public civil suits which suggests to me that there were victims the prosecutors could work with
Yes and no. Testifying about a sexual assault in open court can be fairly traumatic so you don’t necessarily want to force a victim to testify but sometimes you have to strongly convince them that they need to testify. And then you work with them on their direct and cross examination so there’s no surprises. Some find testifying to be a powerful opportunity to tell their story while the offender has to sit there and listen to their accusations.
Saying that he's solution oriented right now is odd phrasing to me as well. Solution to what? Filling your empty punter position tomorrow? Or figuring out a way where you don't have to?
This is what happens when business/hustle type folks use their jargon as a constant communication crutch.
All you have to do is look at how the league handled kneeling for the anthem and how they react to stuff like this to know where the league's heart is.
Now some may argue that the drop in ratings coinciding with the kneeling stuff might have been things other than just fans being upset with the kneelers, but the NFL quickly shut that stuff down and even blackballed players.
Sadly outside of forums like this almost no NFL fans care about this stuff. Even in forums like this some fans don’t give a shit, lots of Pats fans here wanted AB and wanted to keep him even after his stupidity. It’s not exactly the same, but it isn’t all that different either. And of course there is Hill and there is Watson and a hundred other examples with nothing that seems to be able to stop the NFL freight train.
The NFL continues to (correctly) wager that their fanbase will overlook this shit once the games and gambling and fantasy start dominating our weekends come fall.
Edit: to be clear, I still watch and love the game, and hate that I am addicted to the league’s product. There isn’t a lot in life that gets me jazzed up anymore and the NFL is one of them so I justify it that way, but it speaks poorly of my character.
The NFL continues to (correctly) wager that their fanbase will overlook this shit once the games and gambling and fantasy start dominating our weekends come fall.
Edit: to be clear, I still watch and love the game, and hate that I am addicted to the league’s product. There isn’t a lot in life that gets me jazzed up anymore and the NFL is one of them so I justify it that way, but it speaks poorly of my character.
Hearing through reliable information source that Araiza has been released by the Bills.
Edited to “released”
Edited to “released”
This happened yesterday, but I don't think I saw it mentioned here. The victim's lawyer released contemporaneous journal entries. They're a tough read, but the events pretty much match what is in the civil complaint 1:1. The fact that she knew she was being raped and told her friends immediately afterwards makes it very hard to believe that this is any sort of misunderstanding or that it's he said / she said.
View: https://twitter.com/dangilleon/status/1563252684127293440
View: https://twitter.com/dangilleon/status/1563252684127293440
It is worth noting that the NFL has no jurisdiction in this situation because it happened before he was an NFL player. I don't doubt that the NFL would have probably done nothing different had it happened after the draft but they simply don't have any legal standing in this per the CBA. This is up to the Bills and/or the legal system.
I was about to post same earlier. This is far different than Watson and was up to the Bills to act as the NFL’s hands were tied.
Are the NFL's hands really tied?
Seems the League was fine suspending Pryor for 5 games to match what the NCAA gave him for selling/autographing stuff at Ohio State when he jumped the the NFL via the supplemental draft to avoid serving it. Did the NFL give up that power in the latest CBA?
Seems the League was fine suspending Pryor for 5 games to match what the NCAA gave him for selling/autographing stuff at Ohio State when he jumped the the NFL via the supplemental draft to avoid serving it. Did the NFL give up that power in the latest CBA?
What's the source? It's been a couple of hours since your post and I can't find any such news.
That is what I've read, they bargained away that right in the new CBA. Gives them plausible deniability so easy give for them.
Yeah in the new CBA they firmed up the rules around the Personal Conduct Policy, it used to be very very broad in terms of basically "The Commish can do what he wants" I don't think the Union was ever going to go for a policy where you could be punished before you were even in the league.
He has been released. Good move.
View: https://twitter.com/adamschefter/status/1563674747015204865?s=21&t=KZCij9b6UFzDWwtwRa8t2g
View: https://twitter.com/adamschefter/status/1563674747015204865?s=21&t=KZCij9b6UFzDWwtwRa8t2g
- Status