Rape, Trust but Verify.

My initial thoughts regarding Matt Ariza when the story was breaking was that I veered on the side of my Buffalo Bills cutting him (I still defend that decision), and I didn't see any logical reason why the young woman would lie.

Now, it's clear that the young woman was lying.

There's a two-hundred page report. The police and the DA did their work. They believed her. Matt Ariza's career is possibly destroyed because of it.

This is why Bari Weiss's assessment was correct -- "trust but verify" is the right way to handle this.

Most rape victims tell the truth. I'm not denying that for a second.

There's a false, extreme binary between people who believe all women (or victims) and rape deniers -- or worse.

No, trust but verify.

Anthony Broadwater didn't spend fourteen years in prison and forty years on the sex-offender registry because Sebold lied -- people got it wrong and didn't do their due diligence.

This young woman in the Ariza case didn't get it wrong -- she outright lied.

There's documentation that Ariza wasn't even there when the alleged rape happened. There's even video evidence that the DA presented.

The alleged victim claimed that body piercings were ripped out. That's verifiably false. A ten month investigation showed the claim to be false. She didn't just forget about it.

Her own friends said that she never appeared to be intoxicated, that she was saying that she was eighteen, and that she was approaching men saying "If you don't fuck me, you're a fucking fag." Also, she was regularly returning from the sexual encounters and bragging about what happened.

Again, this all happened more than an hour after Matt Ariza left the party.

No matter how you put it, Matt Ariza hasn't simply been found not guilty on the basis of a reasonable doubt -- he's completely innocent. He's vindicated. He didn't do it, and he's the victim of a lie.

The only reason why he's not on any NFL team now is because of two positions -- draft position and his actual position on the field.

He's a sixth round pick and a punter. If he were a top ten pick and a quarterback, every team would have let this fizzle out.

Punters can't be distractions, even if they are immensely talented.