OK with this early goodbye
Hard to have much sympathy for Peterson
The toughest thing about being a sports fan is seeing once-great athletes wage the inevitable losing battle with time.
Reggie Jackson always comes to mind. He was a ferocious slugger in his early years with the Oakland A’s, and, later, during his years with the Yankees, he was a full-fledged, card-carrying Player You Loved to Hate.
Yet at the end, when he was doing one last goaround with the Oakland A’s, a 41-year-old whose 15 home runs were earned more through guile and experience than raw talent, it was a little sad.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Unless an opposing player is some Ulf Samuelsson-type bad guy, you should hurt a little when a notable player from the other team nears the end of his career. Think Derek Jeter. Think Michael Jordan. Think Peyton Manning. If you don’t at some level miss those guys you aren’t a real sports fan.
And then there’s Adrian Peterson, the very, very tough running back for the New Orleans Saints.
Great player, right? But long after anyone even remembers what position he played, he will still be remembered as the guy who in 2014 was required to appear in court to explain the beating he gave to his 4-year-old son.
How could anyone forget? An NFL report noted the “visible swelling, marks and cuts” on the boy’s body. Photos of the child’s injuries hurtled through the internet. Peterson was ultimately suspended for the remainder of the 2014 season, and he later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor assault charge.
Peterson returned in 2015 and gained an NFL-best 1,485 yards. A knee injury limited him to just three games last year.
Cut loose by the Vikings after the season, he signed a two-year deal with the Saints. And if you watched this week’s “Monday Night Football” showdown between the Saints and Vikings (do those NFL schedulemakers know how to create drama or what?), you may have noticed that Peterson still has super powers: He used his X-ray vision to burn a hole into the back of coach Sean Payton’s head.
The former all-everything Vikes star was back in Minneapolis, and, yes, he “played.” But what he mostly did was what the 66,606 fans in attendance were doing: Standing around and watching.
He carried the ball just six times for 18 yards. By the end of the game Peterson was stalking Payton in much the same way Donald Trump stalked Hillary Clinton on the debate stage, along with shouting various words that I’m guessing had something to do with the coach’s deployment of running backs.
If you’re looking for a good debate as to how and where Peterson fits in with the Saints, and how this is a passing team led by Drew Brees, and how Payton must find reps for running backs Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, and on and on and on … sorry, you won’t find that here.
It’s hard to watch Peterson play football without being reminded that it was only three years ago he was dragged into court over the child abuse charges. We were all thus dragged into a debate over the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, with a few old souls wringing their hands while telling us that Peterson was simply taking measures that were in use back in the day.
It’s important to note that Peterson has paid his debt to society, which is a nice way of saying he got a lawyer, went to court, signed a bunch of papers and ladled out the required contrition.
In that spirit, then, he has every right to work.
The Vikings had every right to move on after last season, and the Saints had every right to bring him aboard for the 2017 season. When the Saints host the Patriots Sunday afternoon at the Superdome, Adrian Peterson will be in uniform. No. 28 in your program.
And that’s fine. He’s no longer the dazzling AD of days gone by, but at 32 years old he’s still good enough to play in the grueling National Football League. So let him play. And then it’ll be over, and he’ll be gone, and that’ll be that.
If between now and then he keeps sinking even lower on the Saints depth chart, that’ll be OK, too.