The Buffalo Bills released rookie kicker Matt Araiza on Saturday after he was named in a civil lawsuit for allegedly gang-raping a 17-year-old high school student while he was at San Diego State.
The alleged incident occurred last October, but Bills general manager Brandon Beane said the team was unaware of any possible off-field incident with Araiza until late July.
Yet, some NFL teams knew to steer clear of Araiza ahead of the draft.
According to The Associated Press, executives from two different teams said they were aware of Araiza’s involvement in an incident during their draft process, although they did not know the extent of the allegations. Neither team was also interested in drafting a punter.
However, there were also three other teams who say they did not know of Araiza’s allegations until Thursday when the news first broke.
Araiza, nicknamed “Punt God,” was taken in the sixth round by the Bills and was, surprisingly, the third punter off the board despite being widely considered the best punter in college.
The Ravens and Buccaneers both took punters ahead of the Bills, but it is unconfirmed whether or not they knew of any of the allegations.
While the Bills were aware of some of the allegations in late July, the team still named Araiza the starting putter and cut veteran Matt Haack just days before the lawsuit was filed.
“When [the accuser’s attorney] made [our legal counsel] 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 one of the things you look at. Is where is this criminally,” he said. “So we were just trying to look at everything because one of those things on there, if true, would be a no-go for us.”
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