The Minnesota Vikings are in the process of conducting their last mandatory activity sessions before training camp at Winter Park, and the presence. . .or lack thereof. . .of the Vikings biggest offensive name was the main topic of conversation for most of the day.
No, not that guy, the other one.
Vikings' running back Adrian Peterson was not in attendance at today's activities because he is attending the fourth annual "Adrian Peterson Day" in his home town of Palestine, Texas. To say the least, coach Brad Childress was a bit on the angry side with the whole thing.
"I just know that there's a bunch of guys here, this has a term mandatory for a reason and the work is here, period," Childress said when asked if he was annoyed. "You can say whatever you want. This is the fourth annual Adrian Peterson Day. I don't know if it's going to be like every year that they are going to have that, but we're going to have this, too. The same thing I told Toby Gerhart, way before we decided to draft him. This minicamp was on this date. I know he's going to go back and walk in graduation, this was going to be here. This is where the work is at."
This might come off sounding a bit strange and everything, but I'm going to have to side with the coach on this one. While Peterson is a great running back and, in my opinion, still the best back in the NFL, he has a glaring issue that needs to be addressed, and he should be at the mandatory camp working on it. There aren't very many absences at this mini-camp, so a player the caliber of Peterson missing this thing is going to get more attention, as it should.
Yes, yes, I know. . .there's a certain quarterback that isn't in attendance, either. The difference is that we KNEW that wasn't happening a long time ago. And, as Childress mentions in the story linked above, he did just have surgery on his ankle.
We'll have more on the developments from the Vikings' mini-camp throughout the weekend. For the rest of your Vikings-related news, check out the Daily Norseman on SBNation.