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As Adrian Peterson Vows to Put Down Switches, It’s Time to Switch Teams

adrian-peterson-72bfc22ca79fb7b3Whenever Adrian Peterson is allowed to play football again, it should be somewhere other than Minnesota.

The weight of his child abuse case, the division it has caused within the organization, merits a departure, a new start in a new city in a new uniform.

Seems like he knows it, too.

“I know who loves me. The coaches and the players, it’s not going to be a problem,” Peterson told USA Today. “I’ve felt so much support from those guys. The organization, I know there’s people in the organization that support me and there’s people that I know internally that has not been supporting me. Maybe it’s best for me to get a fresh start somewhere else. I would love to go back and play in Minnesota to get a feel and just see if my family still feels comfortable there.”

When an athlete starts talking about the possibility of playing somewhere else, trust that he is almost always seeking to move on. And if a player wants to move on, let him.

“If there’s word out that, hey, they might release me,” Peterson said, “then so be it. I would feel good knowing that I’ve given everything I had in me.”

He gave the Vikings 10,190 yards and 86 touchdowns in seven seasons, including 2,097 yards in 2012–the best running back in the business. He returned in less than nine months from a torn ACL and looked to be just as good—or better—prompting many to look at him as super human.

In the end, of course, Peterson was human and made a mistake, as humans do, in how harshly he disciplined his child. He learned from his error.

“I won’t ever use a switch again,” Peterson said to USA Today. “There’s different situations where a child needs to be disciplined as far as timeout, taking their toys away, making them take a nap. There’s so many different ways to discipline your kids.”

He went on. “No one knows how I felt when I turned my child around after spanking him and seeing what I had left on his leg,” Peterson said. “No one knows that Dad sat there and apologized to him, hugged him and told him that I didn’t mean to do this to you and how sorry I was.

“I love my son. I love my kids, my family. Like I said, after I took the misdemeanor plea, I take full responsibility for my actions. I regret the situation. I love my son more than any one of you could even imagine.”

And there you have it. That behind him, sort of, Peterson, 29, will be back on the field. . . eventually. And hopefully not in Minnesoata.

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