Late this afternoon, the NFL announced that Adrian Peterson will have a hearing to be removed from the commissioner's exempt list on Monday. He's been on that list since September, when the Minnesota Vikings were all but forced to put him there after mishandling the initial response to his indictment on child abuse charges. For those who missed it, Peterson spanked his four-year-old so severely that prosecutors in Texas called it felony assault. He reached a plea deal last Tuesday in which he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault. As a result, the NFLPA originally wanted Peterson to be reinstated in time for Sunday's game against the Chicago Bears. It argued that Peterson should be allowed to play while the league reviews the matter, since his agreement with the league called for him to come off the list once his legal problems were settled.
It doesn't look like there's much legally that the NFL can do to keep him off the field while it reviews the case under the personal conduct policy. However, when I was writing this up at Liberal America earlier this week, I was troubled by the Vikings' initial response--at least from the on-field side. The players and coaches seemed willing to welcome Peterson back, no questions asked.
If Peterson is reinstated, sources say the majority of the Vikings' football operations executives, as well as the coaching staff and players, want the running back on the team.
This is absolutely, positively, the wrong message to send. While Peterson has the right to seek his reinstatement, that doesn't mean he
should. Hopefully someone is privately telling him that he needs counseling and anger management more than he needs to be on the field. After all, it's better to lose this season now than to lose the rest of his career, his reputation, and possibly his freedom later. Anyone who saw the pictures of Peterson's son would know that he crossed a line. What the Vikings players are saying is that you can do that to a child and come back from it like nothing happened.
I initially wrote about this earlier this week from the context of the black community needing a major rethink on how it disciplines kids. I deleted it because of perceptions that it was racist. But this country as a whole needs a major rethink on discipline. Peterson said he was only doing what his parents did with him when he was growing up. That should make anyone cringe. I've seen parents all over this country raise their hands as if to hit their kids when they step out of line, and on some occasions I've seen parents walk around with a switch at the ready. Can you imagine the reaction if a man were to raise his hand to hit his wife or girlfriend if she said something wrong, or if a woman were to do this to a man? It should be no different.
Fortunately, it's still possible that we could avert a travesty. According to NFL.com, several Vikings execs are split on whether they want Peterson back right away. If someone doesn't suggest to Peterson that he should consider sitting out the rest of this season, all the Vikings' talk of "getting this right" will be meaningless.