Note that later in the article they lump together red meat and processed meat, which muddles the whole issue. Processed meats that are preserved with nitrites are a concern because they form the nitroso compounds that these scientists mention. I have never heard of fresh meat producing nitroso compounds, but I am not an expert so maybe I am wrong. It does seem questionable to me that they would make no distinction between processed and fresh meat for this study.
I caught that, too. No where do they attribute this to fresh red meat, but only in combination with processed meat.