On Saturday afternoon, the Buffalo Bills announced the release of rookie punter Matt Araiza. The release of a punter isn’t generally news, but in this case, it certainly is, and the only question is what took the Bills so long to do it.
A report by Colleen Shalby and Robert J. Lopez of the Los Angeles Times revealed that Araiza is one of three current and former San Diego State players named in a San Diego County Superior Court lawsuit. An unidentified woman claims that Araiza, Zavier Leonard and Nowlin “Pa’a” Ewaliko took turns having non-consensual sex with her as she went in and out of consciousness. The woman was a 17-year-old high-school senior at the time.
We have released Punter Matt Araiza. pic.twitter.com/dlmKJnEj7v
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) August 27, 2022
The Araiza situation was a horrible look for the Bills from start to finish, and the team’s handling of it sadly mirrored the generally cavalier attitude the league and its member clubs have about any kind of violence against women. The Bills originally said in a Thursday statement after the Times report came out that the team had done a “thorough investigation” of the matter, and nothing could have been further from the truth.
From the Bills: “We were recently made aware of a civil complaint involving Matt from October 2021.
Due to the serious nature of the complaint, we conducted a thorough examination of this matter. As this is an ongoing civil case, we will have no other comment at this point.”— Alaina Getzenberg (@agetzenberg) August 25, 2022
A source with information about the situation told Tim Graham of The Athletic that while the Bills were not aware of the alleged incident when they sleeted Araiza in the sixth round of the 2022 draft, they were aware when they cut punter Matt Haack last Monday, making Araiza the starter by default.
From Graham’s story:
The accuser’s attorney told The Athletic on Friday morning the Bills never reached out to him or his client after an initial conversation with the team’s counsel.
“Absolutely not,” attorney Dan Gilleon said. “Never heard from them again.”
After an introductory email to Bills assistant general counsel Kathryn D’Angelo on July 31, Gilleon said the next day he had “a long phone call” with D’Angelo but has had no further contact with the club.
The Bills have not responded to a request for comment.
The Bills did comment on it after their 21-0 Friday night loss to the Carolina Panthers, and head coach Sean McDermott really put his foot in it when he tried to express his feelings on the matter as much as legal matters would let him.
McDermott began his postgame press conference with a statement before handing things off to the media in attendance.
We’re live with Coach McDermott after our preseason game against the Carolina Panthers.#BUFvsCAR | #BillsMafia https://t.co/dJmWVUZ2lR
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) August 27, 2022
“Okay. I know there was a game just played, but I want to talk about something that’s more important, which is what we have going on with one of the members of our team right now. With Matt Araiza. It’s an extremely serious… just hard to go through. It’s not a situation that I or we take lightly whatsoever. It’s very serious. I understand the sensitivity of the situation, and it’s clear that we have work to do continue to figure this thing out here. And we’re going to do that.”
McDermott deflected questions about what he thinks makes Araiza a “great kid” as he has said, and he did not get into the details of the allegations, nor when the Bills actually knew about them.
“I can tell you this: My heart, and my thoughts and prayers, go out to the people involved,” McDermott then said. “And that includes Matt. It includes both sides here. The victim, and everyone involved. Our prayers go out to them.”
We are guessing that everybody in the Bills organization had a collective facepalm over that particular both-sidesing.
But now, the Bills are in need of a punter, the NFL is in need of yet another case of disinfectant after botching an alleged internal investigation, and that’s where we can mercifully leave this story in a football sense.
In a larger and far more important sense, one hopes for swift, fair, and accurate justice.
