Transcript: What Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott said after releasing punter Matt Araiza

The questions have been edited for brevity. 

Opening statement from Beane: The last 48 hours have been very difficult for a lot of people. It’s been tough. And you know, we sympathize with this whole situation, all the parties involved, this young woman, what she went through. Really feel bad for that whole situation. Ultimately this a legal situation, we don’t know all the facts and that’s what makes it hard.

But at this time, we just think it’s the best move for everyone to move on from Matt and let him take care of this situation and focus that. So, we’re gonna part ways there. I know it’s a question of when did we hear this or what was the timeline. Late July from her representative spoke to Kathryn (D'Angelo, Bills assistant general counsel) and laid out some of the things that they were accusing Matt and others of. At that time, our process, we tried to be thorough and thoughtful and not rush to judgment. I would say it’s not easy, you’re trying to put facts around a legal situation, sometimes with limited information, and so ultimately that’s where we’re at today with a decision.

Hope you understand, I know you’re gonna have a lot of questions for me and or Sean, but with it being a legal situation, hope you respect that there’s certain things that we won’t be able to discuss.

Q. When did you decide to move on from Matt?

Beane: Just ultimately, we thought it was best for everybody, just for Matt to be able to … it’s a very serious situation, and with the serious nature of allegations, we don’t have the means to put all the facts together. There’s multiple versions of what happened and he’s a football coach, I’m a GM. We don’t have access to everything and so that’s more important than playing football. And so we want Matt to focus on that.

Q. Attorney said that you guys never asked for a statement from his client. Is that true? 

Beane: Kathryn spoke to him and got some of these things. I think it sounded like he expected her to return a call after that. Her understanding was, she heard what he had to say and that’s when we began our process.

Q. What was your process?

Beane: Doing the best we could with our resources, talking to the league, using our people to try and find information, but ultimately, there’s a lot of things that we have not pieced together even today. We’re just trying to do the best we could and be thoughtful and not rush to judgment.

Bills release punter Matt Araiza after rape allegations in civil suit

Q. Looking back, if you had more information, would you have done things differently?

Beane: Other than this civil accusation that was filed we didn’t have anything. There’s not been a criminal case, so we were just going off of that plus Matt’s version of events plus reaching out to various people that we have in law to try and find out information. But again, it’s an ongoing investigation and so, a lot of times, we weren’t given everything that’s going on.

Q. What changed in last few days?

Beane: Matt gave us his version of events and that’s where it’s at.

Q. What was the thorough examination?

Beane: Yeah, I mean, as thorough as we can be with what we were able to get our hands on. We probably should have said ongoing. It wasn’t completed. We don’t have a lot of things right now, we really don’t. This is very serious. As I said, he’s a coach, I’m a GM. We just decided that the most important thing is not about football, it’s about letting Matt go handle this.

Q. Why did you reach a different conclusion now than in July?

Beane: When you hear him, you’re just trying to not rush to judgment. You’re trying to use as much time as you can to find out what you can find out. And that’s the best I can tell you is that we’re not perfect. OK. We’ve tried to do everything, like in our society, you hear things, you try to find out what’s factual and what’s an accusation. And that’s the best we can do. Ultimately, we don’t know. We’re not detectives. We don’t have the evidence and there’s many things that we could not get our hands on through the resources that we have. This was about not a football move, it was about letting Matt go handle the situation.

Q. Why let go of Haack?

Beane: It wasn’t a civil case. There was no criminal case. What we had was accusations that could come forward and we were still piecing it together. Obviously, 48 hours ago or sometime around then, a civil case was filed. We read through that and circled back again with Matt. Again, it’s a lot of things that right now we can’t close the loop on.

Q. Was Araiza not forthcoming?

Beane: There was more than what we originally got from Katherine from her conversation, but, and it was detailed out in that whatever 11-page deal, but nothing changed from Matt’s version of what he says transpired. But again, it was back to this is bigger than football, and let’s just step back you go handle this. That’s what we thought was most important.

Q. Did you know about this in the scouting process?

Beane: We did not know about this and the league did not know about this. I know people are out there trying to find out and there’s no one – 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 and me and anything that would have been lingering, that would have been off our board.

Q. Will you investigate further?

Beane: Sean and I have been meeting with multiple people ever since. I don’t know how he coached the game. He did a heck of a job being able to stand up there and do that.

We’ve been doing it since we got our hands on the 11-page document. Our legal team, the league, but this afternoon, we decided that this was the best thing and that’s why, you know, I thought Sean made a good decision last night to push pause and let us get back here and surround ourselves with people that are the experts.

Q: The 11-page civil suit brought to light a lot of things you weren’t aware of?

Beane: Well, they were accusations. It just clarified exactly what they were. And at that point, it's a real civil case. It's not a, this may happen. It's something that you have to respond to, and at this point we're not the judge and jury. We don't have that. And again, this is bigger than football. Our culture here is more important to us than winning football games. 

Q: Did you hear from the players on this or what conversations did you have with them?

McDermott: I respect where you're coming from on that. Have a lot of trust in the players that we have here and the veteran players that have been with us, Micah being one of them. That said, I think it was important to try and separate a little bit of that. Obviously factor that in, but this has to be what we feel is the right thing. And in respect to them, they don't know some of the things that were going on here. So, as Brandon said, we've tried to sort through a lot of information. It's ongoing, and I think that’s, to me, been one of the harder parts of this is that it's ongoing and information continues to flow, it seems. So I understand where you're coming from. Yes, I have a lot of faith and trust in those guys. But at the same time, we had to make sure this was a separate situation here.

Q: In retrospect would it have been better to contact the victim’s attorney to get some idea of what was going on because that seemed to be the one thing that fell through the cracks?

Beane: When he first made Kathryn (D’Angelo) aware of this, I would say we had the boulders of what was going to be accused or alleged. But at that point, it wasn't an actual case. And there was, one of the things you look at is, where is this criminally? That’s what you're trying to find out. And so, we were just, again, trying to look at everything. One of those things on there is a, if true, would be a no go for us. You know what I mean? So we didn't need all that. We just needed to try and put as many facts together as we could in a limited amount of time.

Q: Outrage with fans and the community – what do you need to do as an organization to handle this?

Beane: I would ask that you don't rush to judgment. And that's all we tried to do is put the put the facts together. We don't know what happened. We were not there at this incident. And I would hope that what Sean and I have done here, since we got here in ’17 that you know, we're trying to do our best. We don't have all the answers. We're not perfect. But I can tell you, as Sean said earlier, we just tried to do what was right. And has everything been perfect? No. But in our heart of hearts, I can lay my head down at night knowing that I've tried to do what’s right and I know he has, too.

Q: Evaluating process?

Beane: We definitely look at our process and that starts with me making sure we communicate. Every situation is different. It’s very hard sometimes in certain cases like this, you’re involving someone who was supposedly a minor at the time, of getting actual information at the time. All we were trying to do was use our resources in the time we had to put the pieces together and find out what happened, and Matt was very aware if anything was not on the up and up during our process that we would remove him. Once this became a civil case two days ago, it was very serious in nature and we felt it was in Matt’s best interest. 

Q: If civil lawsuit wasn’t filed would he still be on team?

Beane: We were still digging, so potentially. All we were doing was trying to find the facts and until a lawsuit is filed, there was nothing out there other than a potential accusation. There was no criminal case so that’s what we were doing.

Q: There is a criminal investigation.

Beane: Yes, investigation. No charges. 

McDermott: And I would just say that we’re trying all along to stay on top of the information that was out there. So from my seat that’s been one of the hardest things to do because it’s ongoing like you said. That’s where I’m at on it.

Q: Perception that when you cut Haack satisfied with what you learned?

Beane: That’s a tough one. You can second guess whether that was the right move. We’ll definitely look at that going forward if this situation or a similar situation happens.

Q: Obligation of any player to tell team about all of this? Dissatisfaction with his team?

Beane: His agent did not know. Our understanding without getting into it is that Matt learned sometime this summer that he was being investigated and that’s when he hired, I don’t know the date, but I believe he hired his attorney sometime around the time we found out.

Q: Found out from Araiza or accuser's attorney?

Beane: I don’t remember the order of events on that one Heather. It was around the same time. 

Q: Contact with his attorney?

Beane: Matt’s attorney? Yes. Once we got her accusations from her attorney and then after we spoke to Matt about his version of events, he said yes his parents had hired him an attorney and we contacted him as well.

Q: How much did Araiza's version of events change? 

Beane: I mean, I'm not going to get into it, but it didn't.

Q: Were Pegulas involved?

Beane: They were just gathering the information, like – mainly with Terry, but just like we were. We were trying to update them when there was new information.

Q: Was Kim Pegula consulted?

Beane: No.

Q: Walk us through timeline from Thursday to now?

Beane: Yeah, uh, you know I think Sean brought it up yesterday afternoon that we were holed up most of that evening that it came out, and then yesterday and sometime in the afternoon, you know, Sean brought that up and I thought it was spot on.

Q: Plan to reach out to accuser's attorney?

Beane: I think, you know we'll – I know the NFL is doing their part, so we'll follow their lead. You know, it's a little bit of a different situation for them because it happened when he was not in the NFL and so that was part of the road block, too, but I think they're looking into it at this point now that it is a civil case, and we'll take their lead.

Sean: I would say if I could, please understand that we are sympathetic to all involved. I think that is important. So, yeah.

Q: Sympathetic to Matt. What was his reaction to release?

Sean: Yeah, obviously he's going through it right now. I mean it's, you know, he's got a lot going on. He seemed to understand. I think when we spoke again this morning that he agreed that that was probably the best thing. I appreciate him understanding. You know, obviously an important decision and one that I felt like was the right approach at the time.

Q: Understanding the one phone call with accuser's attorney took place with your representation, why was there no more conversations during the process?

Beane: Well, we had the boulders of it, of what was being accused. As I said before, if any of those boulders, if we were able to piece together were accurate, our decision was simple to move on from Matt. So we were using the resources that we had to try and find any answers that we could. And, again, it was very hard. I mean, I don't know that any more conversations with him would have changed anything, because that was those accusations. We were just trying to get the facts.

Q: Why were her words not enough?

Beane: We were trying not to rush to judgment. And obviously Matt's version was different. And you want to give everyone as much due process as you can. Again, we're not a judge and a jury.

McDermott: But I would say, we did take those very seriously. I want everyone to understand that. That's a serious deal right there.

Q: How much did this shake the team, and how do you come out of it?

Beane: I think our culture that we rally around, and culture handles adversity. It'll just be day by day. It's not easy. It's hard. We're going to do the best we can do.

Q: How much impact was it reading the civil suit to see Matt's direct quotes?

Beane: I think we considered everything. It's one of those not getting into the specifics of it. Ultimately, with the seriousness of the whole deal, we thought it was best for Matt to move on.

Q: You've mentioned there are things you can't address because of investigation/on advice of attorneys?

Beane: No, I think it's the team. It's a legal situation.

Q: So you've been advised there are certain things you shouldn't address?

Beane: Yes.