Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice: Goodbye, Adrian

Someday the NFL will die. It just simply will. Not that long ago baseball and boxing were the kings of the sports world and I sit here not able to remember the last time I watched a full Minnesota Twins game and I know that I’ve never watched a boxing match.

I do remember when I last watched the Minnesota Vikings. I watched them on Sunday, like I have every football Sunday for the entirety of my life. The easiness of watching this league is getting a whole lot tougher though.

In all honesty, the NFL doesn’t have an easy life. Each team between players, practice squaders, front office personnel and coaches have at least 100 members that could damage a team’s reputation. They get arrested as the same rate as the general public, but with the NFL being under such a microscope it is shoved to our attention.

If you make million dollars to play a game, you should be put in the spotlight. Adrian Peterson is at the front of the stage right now. The Minnesota Vikings have made a good move and then they made a bad move and now they have a second chance, a rarity in the world of public relations, to do it right.

The Vikings deactivated Peterson for Sunday’s game against the Patriots while they were gathering facts. Good move. The Vikings announced on Monday that Peterson would then practice and play as normal for this upcoming week. Monday evening came around and Adrian Peterson is now connected to another case of child abuse to a different four-year-old in Texas.

Peterson needs to be gone. The apology that Peterson posted earlier on Monday does not stand valid any longer. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The Minnesota Vikings or the NFL needs to take a stand. It’s simply unacceptable for the Vikings to be paying a man millions of dollars who shows this type of behavior. The NFL should not allow a workplace that tolerates such things as the abuse of a child.

Adrian Peterson is a wonderful running back. There’s an argument to be had that he’s the best one to ever put on pads at the NFL level, but I don’t want to see him in purple ever again.

I want to take a moment and commend VikingsMessageBoard.com. If you go to their website right now, you’ll see this message:

A fan site did this. A fan site took a more moral stand than the guys who make millions of dollars off of the visitors of this site and VIkingsMessageBoard.com.

The NFL will eventually die. It might not be tomorrow. It might not be in ten years, but it will die. I just want to enjoy watching the game while it’s here.