Roger Goodell Lecturing Adrian Peterson About Morals Made Me Puke
ESPN - The NFL announced its highly anticipated ruling Tuesday morning, stating that the Minnesota Vikings star running back will not be considered for reinstatement before April 15, 2015, for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. The league announced Peterson’s suspension in a lengthy statement, citing “an incident of abusive discipline that he inflicted on his four-year-old son.”
“We are prepared to put in place a program that can help you to succeed, but no program can succeed without your genuine and continuing engagement,” Goodell wrote in the letter. “You must commit yourself to your counseling and rehabilitative effort, properly care for your children, and have no further violations of law or league policy.” “You have shown no meaningful remorse for your conduct,”When indicted, you acknowledged what you did but said that you would not ‘eliminate whooping my kids’ and defended your conduct in numerous published text messages to the child’s mother. You also said that you felt ‘very confident with my actions because I know my intent.’ “These comments raise the serious concern that you do not fully appreciate the seriousness of your conduct, or even worse, that you may feel free to engage in similar conduct in the future.” “The difference in size and strength between you and the child is significant, and your actions clearly caused physical injury to the child,” Goodell’s letter said. “While an adult may have a number of options when confronted with abuse — to flee, to fight back, or to seek help from law enforcement — none of those options is realistically available to a four-year old child. “Further, the injury inflicted on your son includes the emotional and psychological trauma to a young child who suffers criminal physical abuse at the hands of his father.”
The Vikings also released a statement, saying they “respect the league’s decision and will have no further comment at this time.”
I know Big Cat already blogged this and frankly he nailed it, but I just had to chime in because right now I am sitting in my office with puke on my shoes. The gall of Roger Goodell to lecture Adrian Peterson and America about morals right now is flat out gross. Everybody knows the NFL has no morals. This has nothing to do with morals or the way Peterson disciplined his child. That’s a separate issue that can be debated till the cows come home. This is simply Roger Goodell trying to makeup for the way they butchered the Ray Rice thing and avoid another media controversy. That’s it. The Vikings don’t want Adrian Peterson to play this year. They don’t want to deal with all that shit right now. But they don’t want to cut him either and have somebody else pick him up off waivers.
Therefore the best case scenario for Roger Goodell, the NFL and Minnesota is just to suspend him for the rest of the year, let it blow over and start fresh next year. This decision has zero to do with Peterson’s crime or the way he’s handled himself or any of that other bullshit Goodell is lying through his teeth about. In fact if you ask me Peterson has been accounatable every step of the way.
Per usual with the NFL it’s about business. Peterson got charged with a misdemeanor. That’s it. Goodell always says he let’s the courts handle it and then figure out the punishment. Well the courts handled it (appropriately in my opinion) so Peterson should be allowed to play immediately. The NFL should not be the ones debating what is meaningful remorse and what Peterson was really thinking. Honestly of all the lying and double talk by Goodell recently this lecture may be the most offensive.
PS – I think it’s obvious that Adrian Peterson will win his appeal with a neutral arbitrator but the NFL doesn’t care because the season will be basically over by then.