Lions Fans Get Some Bad News About Matt Patricia
New Lions coach Matt Patricia might be a sexual assulter. Well, at least it’s a coach who might be bad this time? That’s new I guess. Twist on the formula.
It came out last week that someone unearthed an old sexual assault charge on Patricia from back in ’96. Apparently he and some other creep broke into a hotel room of a college student and assaulted her. What assaulted is in this instance hasn’t been defined, but sexual assault isn’t good no matter what degree it is so that part doesn’t matter. Patricia got charged, he got indicted, and the case got dropped 10 months later due to the victim apparently not wanting to go through with a trial. So yeah. 22 years ago Matt Patricia may have been a very bad person. That’s about all we know.
First off, before anything else, so much has been made of the Lions “not doing their due diligence” in finding this information out in the job interview. I call phooey on that. The Lions didn’t find this case, no, but apparently no one else did either for need I remind you…22 years. For 22 years apparently nobody did their homework on the dude and found this? If this information was so easy to find why didn’t anyone notice it till now? I don’t blame the Lions for trusting the guy and not looking into it. Nobody else did until whoever found this out. Honestly I think it’s a bigger indictment on the Patriots that they apparently were “unaware” of this despite Patricia being an employee there for 13 years. I think the Pats probably did know but chose to be fine with it, but obviously they aren’t going to tell the public that. #Metoo is a pretty new phenomenon, it would be pretty easy to brush something like this under the rug in the 90’s and 2000’s when we didn’t give it as much attention.
I don’t know if I think Patricia did it or not. I don’t think we’ll ever know at this point. Patricia gave a pretty definitive “I AM INNOCENT” speech but like, so did Rafael Palmeiro about steroids. Remember that? Funny how that turned out to be the fattest lie. I’m not taking anything out of Patricia’s mouth at face value. If it is true, it’ll be pretty hard to prove it at this point, so there’s no use in Patricia saying anything else other than he was falsely accused. He has everything to lose and the chance it meaningfully backfires on him is small, so of course he’d lie if he did it.
I think something bad happened, and Patricia did a bad thing, the extent of which is tough to gauge (because we don’t know very much), and the woman gave up because the stress of making an accusation like this is ridiculous. The victim blaming, all that stuff which makes it so hard for victims to come forward these days would be amplified 22 years ago. I feel like if this woman was just out to falsely accuse Patricia there’d be a bigger chance we’d have already known about this, or she would have come forward since this news broke to grab some spotlight. Dropping the case so close to trial seems inherently suspicious but everything I read about the case being dropped makes it sound to me like the woman honestly just wanted to be done with it. Maybe she felt wronged and wanted justice but the justice system sucks and was just making her trauma worse with prolonged stress, so she dropped it and went ahead to move on with her life. It really sounds like a textbook case of how the justice system tends to treat sexual assault victims. At this point, if my speculation is the truth, I feel really bad for the woman. She’s had 22 years to get over this wound and now, out of the blue, the scar is likely being ripped back open. She doesn’t deserve this. If Patricia is innocent, he doesn’t deserve this either.
After 22 years, no matter what the truth, the people involved have likely moved on and this is just reopening old trauma for headlines. We aren’t suddenly going to get the truth now. The case was dropped. It was ages ago. This story will be a talking point for a little while, nothing will come of it, and everything will move on. It’s just a bummer situation. Life is pain.
Eli’s paying off people with fake Merchandise, Matt patricia was a scumbag for a reason other than being a patriot.
Weird week for slow offseason news, usually we’d have gotten a “mascot does stupid thing” by now.
I miss weed lion http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/2012-offseason/
I miss Weed Lion http://www.thedrawplay.com/comic/2012-offseason/
Man, I’m glad his came out after he was a Patriot
That said, she dropped the case. She decided it wasn’t worth going forward. And Patricia didn’t get his chance to tell his side of the story. If he said something anything acknowledging guilt, it would be one thing. But he’s claiming innocence, and she dropped the case.
Sorry, not going to “internet mob justice” someone over that.
She made a choice not to go forward with this, and now the only fair option is to respect that choice and move on.
“Patricia got charged, he got indicted”
that right there says something, he was indicted. the burden of going through a sexual assault case is extremely large. While we will never know what happened and every one has the right to due diligence and the presumption of innocence, to completely disregard the situation as he said she said is a scary notion.
Either way we’ll never know the whole truth.
indictments mean nothing. a prosecutor once said “i could indict a ham sandwich.”
That’s how “Internet justice” mob works. On the Internet, you are guilty until proven innocent. That being said, something bad probably happened.
Reall Ozmett, because from what I have heard, getting an indictment is not that hard. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m guessing neither are you.
Now, getting a conviction in a rape case is very hard. But without seeing the evidence or hearing both sides of the story, I’m not making a judgement call. Especially since this is Patricia’s statement:
“As someone who was falsely accused of this very serious charge over 22 years ago, and never given the opportunity to defend myself and clear my name, I find it incredibly unfair, disappointing, and frustrating that this story would resurface now with the only purpose being to damage my character and reputation. I firmly maintain my innocence, as I have always done.”
Maybe he’s a lying shitbag. But if he is, he gets away with it this time.
Eh, at least it’s not “Scumbag Kicker”
My scumbag prediction for this years is that someone will find something on Jon Gruden
My scumbag pick of the year is gonna be DeShaun Watson. He seems like the perfect target for a Michael Vick situation. Godspeed, my dear Watson
Clairvoyant, you are.
Makes a change from comics about suicidal Niners fans.
Im predicting by week 6 we will be looking at suicidal Giants fans.
If we didn’t kill themselves last season this season will be fine. No expectations.
Wait until Eli Manning is still trying to survive behind that O-Line.
Maybe you didn’t see last year’s O-line.
It can’t get much worse. At least now we have a left tackle with actual ability.
Careful, Flowers might be planning something against Solder for all we know.
I’m not sure why you’re tempting fate like this
Sorry to burst your bubble but remember the last time we though we had a talented LT?
It was Flowers
Dave Gettleman played Byron Bell for a year, then spent an offseason saying “the answer is on the roster” with a straight face, somehow, and then said Bell was good enough for another full year. Giants fans are about to be amazed at how much worse Gettleman can make your line.
Nate Solder could be half the player he was in NE and still be twice the player Ereck Flowers is.
Nothing is going to come of this directly, but I think teams will at least be adding lexisnexis searches to their background checks.
All that said it only makes complete sense and surprises absolutely no one outside of Boston which team was the first to conveniently not find this story out.
Dave, are you saying that women aren’t strong enough to take somebody to court?
I can’t tell if this is a serious post or a larf but if it’s serious I’m genuinely not sure how you read that and arrived at this conclusion of all conclusions from what I wrote. I am on her side and completely understanding of how hard it is to come forward about stuff like this, especially back in the 90’s when victims got even less sympathy. My only generalization about women in the entire post is about how difficult it is for victims to come forward because the system works against them. Women are not weaker, they just have a bigger hill to deal with.
I absolutely think women are strong enough to take somebody to court. Why this particular woman relented is really known only to her, and if she just wanted the stress to be over I can respect and understand that, and it’s shitty that something she probably spent years getting over is now back in the spotlight.
If the accusations are true, of course. I think they probably are, but I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.
I think Dave’s position can basically be summed up that something like this is usually an extremely difficult and stressful situation (and it doesn’t help that there are often economic and social ramifications to go along with it). You don’t have to be a woman to find a situation like that too difficult to keep bothering with when you have the option to choose to just let it die – though they manifest themselves differently, we all have our limits.
I remember certain someone from the media trying to push Patricia to Giants before going for trade OBJ route.
Fuck yoooooouuuu Pat Leonarrrrrrrd
On one hand, taking sexual assault more seriously and ending the silence on the issue is good. However, internet mob justice condemning someone who has not been found guilty in a court of law is incredibly dangerous.
I don’t think anyone’s going really mob justice on this, I think mostly we’re all just commenting on a skeleton somebody had in their closet that came out. I don’t think Patricia should get fired or anything for an incident he was technically cleared of 22 years ago. Not unless more horrid details come out, Cosby style.
“I like it when the DP gets dark” might not be the best tag for a comic about sexual assault…
Yeah, looking at it now, you’re right. Let me fix that.
I may be in the minority, but I thought it was hilarious. Should’ve kept it.
The timing for this was super weird. Evidently the woman was contacted but did not wish to comment at this point. Just an odd situation that will probably disappear, only brought up by those wanting to troll Lions fans. As if life didn’t do that enough already.
Honestly I am getting a little tired of the #metoo movement. Not because I don’t think it is justified. I despise rapist and men who sexually manipulate women but because the #metoo movement has replaced our own justice system when it comes to public opinion and seems to include everyone accused in the same category. Whether it be horrendous allegations (that I think is true), Cosby (also I think true) or disc jockey whose hand got a little too low for a photo shoot with Taylor Swift (also I think true) or a culture at a work place that sexualized women (true) but not in the same Ball Park as a Weinstein or Cosby. Some of these allegations are based on a cultural change that our country is going through (and needs to go through) but not a situation where they need to be classified as rapist. Patricia I don’t know and we probably will never know but let’s remember we are a nation of laws not a nation where public opinion based on a time of #metoo can be judge jury and executioner
the only thing i would dispute is that the system itself is corrupt to a certain extent. when you have swimmers or high school football players getting light sentences because of good ol boy mentality ‘justice’ is far from certain.
I agree rape is a horrible crime that needs to be dealt with harshly. However, I think we need a some reform to trials and guilty verdicts. In many of these cases it’s a she said vs he said and we are to quick to just believe the accuser. Such was the case of Brian Banks a high school football player with a full ride to USC who was accused and served five before his accuser was was recorded saying she falsely accused him so her family could sue the school district for $1.5 million. Brian Banks isn’t the openly life behind bars because of false accusations. In a event to make sure things like this don’t happen I believe accusers that lie should serve the time designated to the crime they lie about. Also something has to be done in high school about statutory rape in high school. You are putting a bunch of horny teenagers in a school together and if a senior sleeps with a sophomore he/she could have to register as a sex offender the rest of their lives even if it was consensual. Anyway I am rambling.
I understand what you are saying and agree, though i think things tend to lean on the accuser being more trustworthy. In general it is an issue that needs more work and not just screaming at each other (not that we are here). I think it is also unsavory that male victims of rape are made to feel weak and there for don’t come forward. While we are a much better country than others in terms of sexual assault that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of room for improvement. thank you for your thoughts as well.
I fully agree our society has so much room for growth when it comes to sex and gender, and you are right because right now we are a society that is just yelling at each other and not taking proper steps in hearing (really hearing) the other point of view whether it is about gender equality, race, politics, gun violence…. the list is too long and not many people want to have any sort of compromise
This is impossible. The Internet told me that there are only two sides to these topics and that there was nothing left to learn on these subject matters.
A grand jury only rules on whether there probable cause, and only the prosecution gets to present evidence, meaning only the “she said” part of he said/she said is enough for an indictment. In many (most?) places the grand jury is a rubber stamp for the prosecution. It’s a very low bar and you really can’t read much into it. As the saying goes, a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.
The hotel room they “broke into” was a Radisson, which is a reasonable mid-level hotel. Every one of these I’ve been in has metal door frames and strong locks. You cannot “break into” a room like this without anyone hearing and noticing. It seems likely to me that someone let them into the room.
The fact that everyone involved was on Spring Break (drinking?) and had met on the beach earlier (drinking?) leads one to reasonably wonder whether alcohol was involved with all the interested parties.
Anyone can make an accusation, it’s very dangerous to assume guilt based just on that. Especially now when this stuff will live forever on the internet.
What is this? Actual facts on the internet? How dare you use facts when there is blind outrage to be had!
That being said, you are correct that a grand jury inidictment means next to nothing about his guilt, just that there was probable cause for an arrest. And the bar for probable cause is depressing low in a lot of cases, sometimes only the supposed victims statement and the accused knowing them is all it takes.
Instances like this are a great way of showing how the public at large has very little to no knowledge on how the legal system in the US actually works, or what the steps of a trial actually entail.
The thing that bugs me about things like this is the assumption people don’t change over the course of 22 years. If that’s his only incident and he’s done nothing since, then either he obviously learned something, and helped make him a better person, or he was innocent (but still could have learned something).
Ugh…….
Splash Mountain>Space Mountain
Come at me.
Splash Mountain>Space Mountain
Come at me.
When I was a wee lad, I went to Disney Land for the family’s big vacation. We didn’t have a ton– my mom was a single mom at the time, and she’d just finished college (put herself through, working the whole time, no loans. She’s incredibly awesome). So, we go from Washington down to California. Splash Mountain was new that year, so I was super incredibly hyped. We did all the other stuff, but back in my mind, I wanted that one.
I finally talked my mom into it. We waited in line for two and a half hours for that ride, until I could finally taste it– three logs left… two logs left… ONE FREAKING MOTHER LOG LEFT AND IT’S MY TURN!
“We’re sorry. The ride has broken and will be down for repairs the rest of the day.”
Splash Mountain can burn in the foulest pit of the darkest hell. It killed my unquestioning love of Disneyland.
While reading your tragic story, I shed a solitary tear. I am truly sorry for your hardship, my friend. Also Space Mountain > Splash Mountain any day. There, I said it.
This take is as cold as the gross water in one note Splash Mountain.
Kinda looks like a colts logo in the noose shadow, if it is, that makes sense, we suck, at least we have quinton Nelson
Damn, Jay from RLM is taking this very hard.
Replace the last panel with any of your Cutler comics where he says “Don’t caaaaaare”.