All Smiles in Minnesota After Adrian Peterson Hearing

After months and months of waiting, the Adrian Peterson case is finally starting to move forward. If you’re in the camp that wants the 2012 MVP back in purple, Friday was a good day.

We finally saw some smiles from Peterson and his camp. He felt love outside of the courtroom, passing signs saying “COME BACK AP” and signing autographs for his purple clad fans. Nothing has been decided yet, but the hostility has died a bit, and Peterson knows he’s got support.

According to AJ Mansour of KFAN, Peterson’s attorney Jeffrey Kessler laid out a three part argument attempting to have the judge throw out the “biased” arbitration ruling enacted by arbitrator Harold Henderson on December 15th.

"First, Kessler claimed that the league’s discipline on Peterson is not within the bounds of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Citing testimony from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Peterson’s punishment was applied retroactively to behavior that occurred before the new domestic abuse policy came to being. Secondly, Peterson’s team claimed that the league did not have the jurisdiction to require a player to attend therapy and counseling before returning to the field. According to paragraph 15 of the CBA, the league’s punishments are restricted to fines, suspensions and termination of contracts. And finally, the Kessler argued that the league mishandled Peterson by misusing the Commissioner’s Exempt List as a “punishment before trial” and attempted to amend the CBA after the fact on December 16th, 2014. – kfan.com"

In opposition, Dan Nash, who represents the league, argued that Peterson was justly punished for “conduct detrimental to the league.” He also argued that it is entirely up to the league whether or not Adrian can be immediately reinstated, not the court.

The Vikings organization is basically at a stand-still until this gets resolved, as Peterson remains the biggest threat on the Vikings offense, and the biggest contract. If there is anyone who wants this to be over, it’s general manager Rick Spielman, who recently spoke positively about his star running back.

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“I don’t know if there’s a team in the NFL that wouldn’t want Adrian Peterson on their football team,” Spielman said. “If you can name me one … and I don’t want to speak for other teams. I’m being a little sarcastic with that. But I know that he’s a pretty good football player. I’ll just stick by what I’ve said. I know that Adrian is a good person, just being around him. I know he’s done a lot of good in this community. He just came out and said he made a mistake. As [Mike Zimmer] had stated earlier, he has to get all that in order and then we’ll proceed from there.”

At the conclusion court session , Adrian said he felt he got a fair hearing. When asked if he wants to stay with the Vikings the future, Peterson said, “of course”, with a smile.

There is no concrete date for a resolution to this drawn-out case, but it seems a little more likely than it did yesterday that we’ll see Teddy Bridgewater handing off to Adrian Peterson in 2015.

Next: Jerome Felton Opts-Out of Large Contract

Feb 6, 2015; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson autographs a sign for fan Brady Vixayvong outside the U.S. District Courthouse as the NFL Players Association

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