Bills make right call not playing Araiza in uninspiring loss to Panthers

The Buffalo Bills made the only decision they could have Friday night: They did not play punter Matt Araiza in their preseason finale at Carolina against the Panthers which they lost 21-0.

Araiza was accused in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Southern California of participating in the gang rape of a then 17-year-old female. He has not been charged, but the Bills could not, in good conscience, dress Araiza given the circumstances.

A clearly upset and drained coach Sean McDermott spent nine minutes answering questions about the situation, and while he didn’t elaborate on much of anything, and kept going back to standard pat answers, there was enough in there to indicate that he fully recognizes the gravity of what is taking place.

Sign up for the Bills Blast newsletter. Delivered straight to your inbox, additional Bills analysis, insight, stats, quotes and team history from Sal Maiorana

“Understand there was a game just played, but I want to talk about something that’s more important which is what we have going on with one of the members of our team right now, Matt Araiza,” McDermott said. “It is a situation that is extremely serious, just hard to go through and it’s not a situation that I or we take lightly whatsoever. I understand the sensitivity of the situation. And it’s clear we have work to do to continue to figure this thing out here and we’re going to do that.”

McDermott was peppered with questions, but he held firm - as he often does - on revealing the inner workings of One Bills Drive.

He was asked several times about when he first learned of the allegations surrounding Araiza, what the team knew, whether the hollow statement the Bills put out is adequate at this point, and whether Araiza will be a member of the team moving forward.

His singular answer was along the lines of, “Respect your question, but I’m not going to get into the details.”

When he was asked about how female Bills fans in particular may be feeling, he said, “Again, it’s not a situation we take lightly. I’m hurt, I understand they’re hurt. And it’s emotional. It’s not easy to to hear about some of the things that I’ve heard about over the last several hours, say. Haven’t slept a lot to be honest with you.”

Several times he said, “We have work to do” in reference to trying to find out what exactly happened, and how the team apparently was not aware of anything until only recently.

“It’s just a matter of trying to find the truth at the end of the day, right?” he said. “That’s the goal is 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.”

Doing the right thing might be to just cut Araiza and move on, and when he was asked about that, and about Araiza’s character, he said, “I’m not going to get into who Matt is and his character and all that type of stuff. I don’t think that’s right right now. I can tell you this, my heart and thoughts and prayers go out to the people involved. And that includes Matt, it includes both sides here, and the victim and everyone involved. Our prayers go out to them.”

During the game, Araiza released a statement through his agent that read: “The facts of the incident are not what they are portrayed in the lawsuit or in the press. I look forward to quickly setting the record straight.”

Obviously, these next few days are going to be quite interesting.

Talking about the game seems rather irrelevant, but there was a game, and there were things that happened. Here's my recap of the night:

Barkley the punter was better than Barkley the QB

With no other punter on the roster, third-string quarterback Matt Barkley handled the duties and, if nothing else, the Bills have at least found someone on the roster who could do the job in the unlikely event their punter - whether it’s Araiza or someone else - were to get hurt in a regular season game.

Of course, that situation could have been avoided had the Bills not made the decision to cut Matt Haack on Monday. They admitted that they had been “recently made aware” that Araiza was involved in an incident, and it is believed that occurred at the very start of training camp. So, cutting Haack with that situation still hanging in the balance, in retrospective, looks curious.

In what will probably be the last live action he sees this season, Barkley had a rough night on offense. Nothing really worked as, for the first time in this preseason, the Bills’ second- and third-string offensive players did not outshine the Panthers the way they did the Colts and Broncos.

As a quarterback, Barkley completed 9 of 13 passes for 100 yards and twice he took sacks on fourth-down plays, one in the red zone in the fourth quarter.

But as a punter, he hit a 33-yarder on his first attempt, then was credited with a 53-yarder on his second, though be benefited from a great bounce and roll that saw the ball get downed at the Panthers 8. He later had punts of 39 and 35 yards, though the 39-yarder was a low liner that was returned 23 yards.

Not a great night for Case Keenum, either

Keenum played poorly in the opener against the Colts, was very good against the Broncos, and his rollercoaster ride took another dip in this game.

He played four series, the first one a three-and-out, the second producing just one first down, and the third ending when his pass was deflected at the line of scrimmage and was intercepted by Jeremy Chinn. Three plays later, Baker Mayfield threw a 19-yard TD pass to Shi Smith that made it 14-0.

Keenum’s last series was a very good one, a 19-play march that covered 71 yards and consumed nearly 11 minutes of game clock. However, it ended with no points when the Bills - after converting twice on fourth-down - were stuffed on fourth-and-1 at the Panthers 8. He finished 8 of 13 for just 36 yards.

Isaiah Hodgins deserves to make the team

The third-year wide receiver has improved so much since his first two injury-plagued seasons in the league.

“The coaches kind of told me going into OTA’s, they wanted me to play more physical on the perimeter and that includes blocking,” Hodgins said earlier in the week. “Not only that but just really when there’s a ball and it’s a contested catch in the air, that it’s my ball. Or it’s across the middle and I come down with those tough grabs. I’ve really been trying to focus on extending my hands for catches and make contested catches.”

On the long Keenum drive, Hodgins made three catches for 13 yards, and two of the receptions converted fourth-down situations. He finished with four catches for 19 yards. He is battling with Jake Kumerow for the last receiver spot, and if it was me making the call, if I only could keep one, it would be Hodgins.

More:Third-year wide receiver Isaiah Hodgins is making roster decisions difficult for Bills

Quintin Morris should make it, too

The second-year tight end, who spent last season on the Bills practice squad, just continued to make plays in this game, and what stood out to me was his blocking. He made a couple critical blocks that led to nice gains in the run game, one where he sealed off the right end which allowed Duke Johnson to gain 10 yards and another that allowed Raheem Blackshear to convert on a third-and-1. He also made one catch for 12 yards.

All three of the backup tight ends - Morris, Tommy Sweeney and O.J. Howard - played in the second half and that was one of the things I was looking for in this game: When would Howard play?

He started the game, but the fact that he was still out there late seems like an ominous sign for his future with the team. I think the Bills have been trying to showcase him the past couple games for a potential trade, and I think Morris’ strong camp is a key reason for that. He was not targeted one time in the game.

More:With a strong roster, several players who the Bills cut will sign with other teams

Second-string defense hung tough

The Panthers played their starters for almost the entire first half, and with Mayfield at quarterback, they scored a pair of touchdowns. However, a deeper look reveals that Carolina wasn’t all that impressive.

The only starters the Bills played were cornerbacks Kaiir Elam and Christian Benford, and one of them won’t be a starter when the season starts. Everyone else was a backup going against Carolina’s top players, minus Christian McCaffery.

The Panthers had to punt on their first series, and then took possession at their own 47 after a 33-yard punt by Barkley could not flip the field. From there, they needed 12 plays to get to the end zone, and the drive was extended when Boogie Basham jumped offsides, wiping out what would have been a turnover on downs sack by Shaq Lawson.

They finally scored on a fourth-and-goal play from the 2 as D’Onta Foreman beat Cam Lewis out of the backfield to catch a pass from Mayfield after Foreman had been stopped on back-to-back runs to the left side by the combination of Benford and Jaquan Johnson.

Bills couldn’t escape injuries

After getting through the first two games in pretty good shape, the Bills suffered a few bruises in this one.

Defensive tackle Eli Ankou suffered a hamstring injury early in the game, wide receiver Tanner Gentry went down with a knee/hamstring problem, and defensive back Cam Lewis suffered a nose injury while making a hard contact tackle in the third quarter.

By the numbers

The Bills had only 12 first downs and gained a mere 191 yards, but the Panthers weren’t all that much better as they had 15 first downs and 238 yards. … One problem area for the Buffalo defense was on third down as Carolina converted 9 of 17. … This was easily the Bills best game in terms of penalties as they had only three for 20 yards. … Khalil Shakir made another statement to be active on game days as the punt returner as he had two for 27 yards. … Barkley’s average on his four punts was 40.0 which was nothing to laugh at.

Game balls

▶ QB/P Matt Barkley. Yeah, that’s right. If Shohei Ohtani can hit and pitch, why can’t a quarterback also punt? This was shades of Danny White, who back in the late 1970s and early 1980s was both the quarterback and punter for the Dallas Cowboys.

▶ S Damar Hamlin. He had a solid night in coverage, was in on four defensive tackles and also made two on special teams.

▶ RB Raheem Blackshear. He’s not making the team, but the Bills sure hope they can get him on practice squad. He carried the load in this game and had 47 yards and 13 carries and caught two passes for 12 yards.

What’s next

The preseason is over, thankfully. And now the Bills can set their sights on the regular season opener at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles Sept. 8.

But first, they have to trim the roster to 53 players by 4 p.m. Tuesday. And then a day later, they can start piecing together a 16-man practice squad where they will surely try to re-sign several players they release.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.To subscribe to Sal's new twice-a-week newsletter, Bills Blast, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Bills lose preseason finale to Carolina Panthers