Bills head coach Sean McDermott was visibly emotional as he addressed the civil lawsuit filed against punter Matt Araiza at the start of his postgame press conference Friday night.
"I want to talk about something that's more important, which is what we have going on with one of our members of our team right now. And Matt Araiza is a situation that is extremely serious," McDermott said. "It's just hard to go through and it's not a situation that I or we take lightly whatsoever. It's very serious. I understand the sensitivity of the situation. It's clear we have work to do to continue to figure this thing out here, and we're going to do that."
Araiza, who is the only punter on the roster did not dress for the game against the Panthers Friday night. McDermott said not having the rookie participate in the game was his call.
"It was my decision and at the end of the day I didn't feel like it was right to (have him play)," he said. "That's what I'm after is doing the right thing."
McDermott got emotional when he was asked how much this civil lawsuit and what it alleges has dampened the spirits of Buffalo's locker room.
"Where do you want to start," McDermott asked rhetorically.
On Friday night, coach McDermott indicated that there is more ground that the Bills organization must cover saying he just learned of some new information within the last 24 hours.
"I would say there's been some (new information) and I'm not going to deny that. It's clear we have work to do here in figuring this thing out," he said. "It's not easy to hear about some of the things that I've heard about over the last several hours. I haven't slept a lot to be honest with you, because this is a game, but there's other things that are more important."
Buffalo's head coach pledged to take a solution-oriented approach from this point forward and gather as much information as possible.
"It's just a matter of trying to find the truth at the end of the day," he said. "That's the goal. Find the truth and do the right thing. And that's what I keep coming back to in my mind and my heart is find out the truth to the best of my ability and do the right thing."
In recognizing that those on both sides of the case are hurting as well as Buffalo's fan base he wants to resolve the situation concerning his punter as quickly as possible.
"I just want to get to that answer as soon as we can," he said. "But you know how things sometimes work with these situations. There are things on both sides with legal and attorneys and everything like that. So again, just trying to put this all together and do what's right."
