Vikings Hope To Repair Relationship With Adrian Peterson

Adrian Peterson’s life has been thrown in a loop over the last year: no one could have truly foreseen any of this. In less than a year, he was tried for child abuse, suspended by the league and then won an appeal to be reinstated. And in all that time, his relationship with the Minnesota Vikings completely and utterly deteriorated.

Something that became even more obvious with the very public spat between Peterson’s agent Ben Dogra and Vikings vice president Rob Brzezinski, a fight that resulted in the agent claiming the former 2012 MVP was forever done with the Minnesota organization.

Still, Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman are making one last-ditch effort to brick Peterson back as they travel to his Houston home today. This will be the first time the player will be face-to-face with the organization since September: and his wife plans on being present during the proceedings.

Last month, Peterson talked about being “uneasy” with coming back to the Vikings: and even stated, “My wife [and I], we’ve had several conversations about me returning to Minnesota, what the best options are. If I left it up to her, I’d be somewhere else today, and that’s with her weighing everything.” So it looks like the coach and the GM will have several hurdles: as they need to convince the wife, the agent and ultimately the player.

“I think it’s been very clearly stated that we want Adrian Peterson back,” Rick Spielman said. “There’s no question about the talent. He’s a unique talent, and he’s under contract with us next year.”

But if rumors are to be believed, this meeting could result in a restructuring of his contract, so he could be sent to a team of his choosing: according to Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson, Adrian has five teams in mind — Dallas Cowboys, Arizona Cardinals, Indianapolis Colts, San Diego Chargers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In the end, it comes down to the running back: his contract over the next three years eats away at major cap — from 2015-17 it kills over $47 million in space. So if he stays or goes, he needs to somehow restructure his contract: as talented as he is, he is still a 30-year-old back in a young man’s sport.