Why would the Chiefs have any fault in this at all such that lawyers would have had to get involved?

If Britt were drinking on the job at some tiny mom and pop store instead of a multi-billion dollar NFL team, would that tiny mom and pop store get sued or owe the family anything?

If other employees at the mom and pop store saw him drinking and allowed him to drive himself from work intoxicated then yes.

Unless the Chiefs knew about it and even looked past it. Who knows? But it does open up a can of worms.

From an optimist perspective, the Chiefs want to do right by the family as much as they can. Nothing will ever change the situation, but at least the team is stepping up to do what they can,

From a pessimistic perspective, the Chiefs would like this whole affair to go away. If they can bury it by throwing money at it (one thing they have plenty of) and make it go bye bye, then so be it. Plus, if they can settle out of court, less of a chance they really get reamed by a jury.

Agreed. You know someone in the room was saying leave it to the lawyers.

It is/was a PR disaster, but the Chiefs didn't really HAVE to do anything. I'm not sure where the liability would lie, but I'm guessing solely with Britt Reid (real lawyers feel free to eviscerate me). Good on them that they did.

Even the pessimistic approach isn't the worst case scenario. That would have been some sort of smear campaign against the family.

Again, I don't think there is a ton of liability for the Chiefs here. Nobody instructed Britt to drive drunk. And having beers at work is no crime.

My first day at Cabela's happened to fall on the day of the annual retreat or whatever they called it. There was booze. And if anyone in the entirety of the planet isn't going to take any unnecessary risk, it's an Internal Audit department.

There was an instance a few years ago up here in Des Moines where a guy was overserved at a bar. The guy left the bar, got on 80 going the wrong way and ended up killing two police officers and a prisoner they were transporting.

That bar got sued and they ended up settling. So, the Chiefs could absolutely be held accountable if they knew of Britt's drinking issues and especially if they allowed it to happen on Chiefs' property.

Quick link for anyone interested:
https://www.weareiowa.com/article/ne...d-cd117171a24a

I agree, the Hunts didn't have to do this and it would have been an uphill battle to prove the Chiefs at fault. Sure enough there would have been some PR fallout but in reality, the ultimate responsibility calls on Britt. So what if he had a few beers at the office and more in the parkiing lot. You'll see after hours drinking going on at just about any company large or small. It's impractical to police every employee in every office for drinking.

No, the Hunts (and Chiefs) just did a good thing and they should be commended for it.

Why didn't the Reid family pay for all this stuff? Andy is plenty rich.

This. They probably knew he had a drinking problem. Was drinking with other Chief coaches. They have billions. Probably win any lawsuit. But……Pay them to get great publicity instead of the shitshow of bad publicity battling a lawsuit.

This isn't that hard. We're the Chiefs liable, probably not, but they were getting sued no matter what and the discovery could have been bad, see Washington Redskins... The family is taken care of and so is the situation. It's a business decision.

I'm pretty sure it's more than that for Andy.

Clark? I like to think it's both...

Yep, classy move.

Could not have said it better.

To me, the interesting thing here is the name of the lawyer for both the Chiefs and Ariel's family: Tom Porto.

I suspect he's related to Dick Porto, who used to be the estates and trusts lawyer for Baptist Hospital's charitable foundation. The Chiefs reunion dinner used to be done in concert with Baptist's Charitable foundation because former GM Jack Steadman's wife used to be on the board of this charity. When Baptist Hospital closed in the early 2000s, Tavia Hunt was a board member of the charitable foundation. Presumably, she worked with Dick Porto.

My guess is that Tom Porto is an estates and trusts lawyer, and the Chiefs funded a trust for Ariel's benefit. That's why he's the lawyer for both the Chiefs and the family.

How do I know this? My Dad used to be a Dr. at Baptist and worked with that charitable foundation. I chatted with Tavia at those dinners multiple times bc I knew her at UMKC.

I hope this can lead to healing on both ends.

I feel like it’s pretty clear this whole situation was hanging over the team in the Super Bowl and ever since. That’s why there was so much negative energy.