Well, in the midst of missing OTAs, Adrian Peterson has graced the public with an epic Twitter rant about NFL players’ rights – aka his feelings about the Minnesota Vikings situation.

Adrian Peterson’s Epic Twitter Rant

And while I do agree that NFL players need more rights — Roger Goodell rules over the league with an iron fist and it is the NFLPA’s fault — I disagree with the way Peterson is going about this situation.

Basically, what he is talking about is an ‘opt-out clause,’ which is used in the NBA and MLB. There, players have the ability, after a certain amount of years, to opt-out of their contract – this is specifically written into the deal during the signing period.

Most noteworthy, Kevin Love has the ability to opt-out of Cleveland after this year and Giancarlo Stanton’s massive contract with the Marlins offers him a chance to leave after 2020.

On top of offering the player a way out, it also gives them leverage to negotiate an even bigger deal with the team: Alex Rodriguez did this with the Yanks in 2007, as he turned his $72 million contract into a ten-year deal worth $275 million.

Now, I will not say that the opt-out clause is perfect nor is the NFL’s policy 100 percent terrible: the guaranteed money clause keeps some culpability on the player if he does not play well. Still, Peterson, in the current climate, is lucky to still be wearing a NFL uniform. As Ray McDonald and Ray Rice have shown, careers can now die due to off-the-field incidents, making him extremely lucky that his child abuse charges did not do the same thing.

In the end, what he said was somewhat right — the players need more power — but the awkward question is should he really be the face of this cause? Between the child abuse charges and his current contract — he is by far the highest paid running back in the league — his pleas for player and organization equality might fall on deaf ears.

Either way, this is the current state of the NFL. And, love it or hate it, he has to show up to the Vikings training camp or simply retire, stubbornly foregoing more than $40 million in the next three years.

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