On Thursday morning, the Santa Clara District Attorney’s office charged Reuben Foster with three felony counts, including domestic violence, for a Feb. 11 incident with his girlfriend. Shortly after, the 49ers released the following statement, implying that Foster will stay with the team at least for the time being.
“The 49ers organization is aware of today’s disturbing charges regarding Reuben Foster. We will continue to follow this serious matter. Reuben is aware that his place in our organization is under great scrutiny and will depend on what is learned through the legal process.”
49ers beat writer Matt Maiocco joined Gary & Larry on Thursday morning, and said that he believes the team must disagree with the DA’s findings if they are willing to keep Foster following these charge.
“The way I read this, and I don’t think there is any other way to read it, is that the 49ers have a very large degree of skepticism about the findings from the Santa Clara County DA’s office,” Maiocco said. “If what the Santa Clara County DA’s office is reporting, if what their investigation revealed is 100 percent accurate — that she was dragged by her hair, she was thrown out of the house, she was punched 8 to 10 times, she was bruised and had a ruptured ear drum — if the 49ers thought that that was 100 percent accurate, and they didn’t act to release him immediately, that’s unfathomable.”
Maiocco believes that even if a portion of the charges are legitimate, Foster should be cut.
“I would think that he would have to go if this stuff is, I don’t know, 25 percent accurate as far as what happened. I don’t know where this goes, but the 49ers put out a statement about 90 minutes after the DA’s office released its statement. The 49ers in essence said Reuben Foster is still a member of the team. They are not cutting him — I’m paraphrasing — he’s a member of the team and they are going to let this case wind through the legal system before determining what to do.
“They better be prepared for a lot of backlash, and they better log off of social media for a week or so, because if they put any credence into the public perception and how this looks for the organization, they might reconsider this. But by that statement that they released 90 minutes after the charges became known, they are saying that we will let this process play out and basically let this case get adjudicated before the next step is made. We’ll see. To me the next thing that has to be done is Monday, when the offseason program begins. If he’s there or not will kind’ve send a signal where they’re going with this, but right now they’ve bought themselves at least the amount of time it takes for this to wind through the legal process a little bit further.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Maiocco on Foster, start from the beginning.