By Chris Schad
Over the past couple of months, the Minnesota Vikings have done their best to become champions of the offseason. They added key pieces on both sides of the ball with hopes that if the team as a whole can take a step forward, their 7-9 record from 2014 could improve enough to make a push for the playoffs.
As the team prepares for its first round of organized team activities (OTAs), there has to be a feeling like a parent on Christmas Eve looking for that final toy in a crowded Target. The secondary has been hung with care and Rick Spielman dodged other crazy general managers in the draft to get the toys that Mike Zimmer wanted to play with. But, there’s still one line that hasn’t been crossed off:
The return of Adrian Peterson.
Peterson is reprising the Reggie Jackson role as the straw that stirs the purple kool-aid in 2015. All of the additions such as bringing in Mike Wallace and drafting Trae Waynes are nice, but the big addition was to be the return of the former All-Pro running back.
In a world of common sense, it would be nice to have Peterson at OTAs to get the whole “Sorry, I missed a year” conversation going and to focus on the real goal: Winning a Super Bowl. Unfortunately, Peterson lives in a world where riding giant camels are still cool and his agent, Ben Dogra, wants enough money so that he could have a fleet of them in his backyard (This has yet to be confirmed, but I’m assuming that’s where ‘Face of the Franchise’ money lies.)
Yahoo’s Charles Robinson reported Sunday night that Peterson is planning on skipping all team OTAs, but hasn’t made his mind up on skipping next month’s mandatory mini-camp or training camp later this summer. Many believe that this is part of a holdout plan that has little leverage since the team has two more years remaining on Peterson’s contract.
That makes panicking over the star running back’s absence from a voluntary workout foolish on the Vikings part. The team likely knows whether or not this is a pure financial issue (Robinson’s report says that’s not the case) and if it wasn’t, why would Zimmer “have an indication” of when he would return?
In all reality, the best way for Peterson to get leverage for a new deal would be to show up to camp and repair the relationship that has been damaged over the past year. An angry, motivated A.D. would likely tear the league to shreds and provide the Vikings a better reason to pay him rather than his reported hurt feelings.
Nobody outside of Winter Park or Peterson’s camp knows exactly what’s going to happen in this saga, but there’s still a good chance that it ends with the face of the franchise putting on the purple for one more year and helping the Vikings in 2015.