The day will come when Adrian Peterson will be reinstated to the NFL, but as of right now it doesn’t seem like he is sure he will return to Minnesota when he does return. Peterson spoke out about the Vikings and how he felt a little uneasy about how things were handled behind the scenes when it came to him being placed on the exemption list.
While the Minnesota Vikings have tried to pave the way for Adrian Peterson’s return to the team through numerous comments from top officials in the last week, the running back remains undecided about his future with the team.
Peterson told ESPN on Thursday night he is “still uneasy” about the prospect of returning to the Vikings in 2015, saying the organization working with the NFL to put him on the commissioner’s exempt list last September made him question how much support he had from the team for whom he has played his entire career. The 2012 NFL MVP called that decision an “ambush,” adding, “There were people (in the organization) that I trusted, who knew exactly what was said, that weren’t heard from” in the decision-making process.
“They weren’t able to do anything about it,” Peterson said.
The 29-year-old Peterson was in Minneapolis on Feb. 6 for a hearing in federal court, as the NFL Players Association sued the league in hopes of gaining Peterson’s immediate reinstatement. But unless Judge David Doty rules in the NFLPA’s favor, Peterson cannot be reinstated until April 15. He has been complying with the NFL’s requirements for reinstatement, adding he talked with Dr. April Kuchuk — the New York University psychiatry instructor with whom commissioner Roger Goodell ordered Peterson to meet — to set up a counseling and treatment plan. He has to meet the requirements of his probation in Texas, as well as a child protective services order in Minnesota, after pleading no contest to reckless injury Nov. 4, but Peterson said he has been doing all the work and plans to play somewhere in 2015.
He’s just not sure yet if it will be with the Vikings.
“It shows you can have all the loyalty toward someone and toward an organization, a fanbase, but when things really shift and it’s you or the empire, they’re gonna put you out on a leash,” he said. “I said, ‘Of course (I would love to come back to the Vikings, after a court hearing in Minneapolis on Feb. 6).’ I said it. But my emotions, as far as those things I feel, those are for players like (linebacker) Chad Greenway, those guys that play the game just like me, that have the same passion I have, the same goal I have, to win a championship. That’s where it comes from. It don’t come from the organization. I’m not in a good place when it comes to that.”
Peterson is under contract for 2015, and is scheduled to earn a base salary of $12.75 million from the Vikings. Team president Mark Wilf, chief operating officer Kevin Warren, general manager Rick Spielman and coach Mike Zimmer have all recently said they want Peterson to return in 2015, and the Vikings seem to be preparing for Peterson to play his ninth NFL season in Minnesota. But Zimmer has said the relationship needs to be a “two-way street,” and Peterson said he knows the Vikings won’t force him to be there if he decides he isn’t comfortable in Minnesota.
“I know there are a lot of people in the organization who want me back,” he said. “But then again, I know the ones who don’t. It’s a difficult transition, and it’s not just about me. I have a wife who was able to sit back and see how people in Minnesota said this and said that, how media in Minnesota took the head of the situation with my child, and were digging into things that weren’t even relevant. That wasn’t people in Texas — it was people in Minnesota that dug in and brought things out. That impacted me, but most importantly, it impacted the people around me — my family, my kids. This came from the state I love so much, that I wish to bring a championship to? This is how they treat me when I’m down and out? You kick me? My wife (and I), we’ve had several conversations about me returning to Minnesota, what the best options are. If I left it up to her, I’d be somewhere else today, and that’s with her weighing everything. It’s a lot for me to weigh; she understands that. But there are some things that I’m still uneasy about.”
Peterson doesn’t sound like someone who is looking forward to returning to Minnesota after how everything unfolded and it certainly sounds like he has some issues with how folks to some shots at him while he was handling his legal issues.
If the Vikings are willing to let him out of his deal, I can see him possibly landing elsewhere going forward. Even though Peterson seems to have an established rapport with his teammates in Minnesota, the words trust, uneasy and uncertain came up when it came to folks in the front office and at the end of the day, that’s who writes the checks.