With the injury to Sam Martin, of course, I was hoping my Buffalo Bills would finally give Matt Araiza his well-deserved second shot. Now to be fair to the team, it might not have been the time. Araiza has been out of football for two years, and we're in the playoffs. Still, it would have said positive if we just gave him a workout.
All that said, we've had two cases in the last year involving athletes who we now know for certain didn't commit the rapes that they were accused of, and that their accusers were lying.
The Trevor Bauer situation played out the way one would expect a false rape accusation would. He had just signed the largest contract in MLB history. He was rich, and the woman was after his money. Fortunately, the woman was also an idiot. She actually texted a friend telling her about her plan to get at Bauers money, and tool a video of herself in bed next to Bauer the morning after the alleged incident -- with a smile on her face and none of the bruises that she claimed that Bauer had inflicted.
The Matt Araiza story was weirder. The accusations were made before Araiza was drafted. Punters drafted in the sixth round don't make that much money. Nobody, including me, could think up a reason why the young woman would make up such a horrible lie.
Still, we now have video evidence that Araiza wasn't even at the house at the time of the alleged incident. Even the woman's friends wouldn't support her story, rather reporting that she was goading men to have sex with her and bragging.
Still, upon discovering that these men were innocent the whole time, they still don't have their jobs back. It seems like there's zero interest from any teams in MLB or the NFL with any interest. What's more, the reporting on the original allegations were much louder and more plentiful than the reporting on it fact that they were innocent.
The worst thing that you can imagine being done to you is also the worst thing that you can be falsely accused of someone else. Law enforcement and the courts did their due diligence and exhortation these men. Now, it's time for the rest of us to do the same.
It's time to give these men back what they lost. One thing that we can all help to give back to them is their reputations.