The league meetings came and went with no resolution to Adrian Peterson’s status in Minnesota. The next key event regarding his status with the team launches in three weeks and five days, in Chicago.
If -- and that’s still a fairly large “if” -- the Vikings plan to trade Peterson, the best move at this point would be to get a deal down quietly, and then to implement it when the team to whom Peterson will be dealt is on the clock, with the first pick the Vikings will be receiving. That approach allows the Vikings to swoop in and grab a guy they want, without having to worry about someone jumping over them.
The strategy makes even more sense if the Vikings get a low first-round pick or a high second-round choice and intend to select a running back like Todd Gurley or Melvin Gordon. If the Vikings obtain that spot in line before the draft begins, anyone else interested in either guy will know that they need to leap the Vikings to get Gurley or Gordon.
It’s stil unclear whether a team would give up as much as a low first-round pick or a high second-round pick for Peterson, who has yet to publicly declare that he doesn’t want to play for the Vikings, or whether the Vikings would accept that. While the clearing of $12.8 million in cap space by the Cowboys in the Tony Romo restructuring has sparked speculation that they’d now absorb Peterson’s $12.75 million salary, the Cowboys still aren’t believed to be a viable contender for Peterson’s services. And while the Cardinals are the only other team that has been widely linked to Peterson, other teams with young or mediocre quarterbacks could be tempted to roll the dice on Peterson having a Marshawn Lynch-style effect on an offense, transforming a bad team into a contender by making it easier for the quarterback to move the ball.
Of course, this assumes Peterson is willing to continue his traditional role of superconducting electromagnet in an anvil factory. He has suffered through many seasons of fueling an offense that had a crappy passing game; with the Vikings finally developing a young quarterback with “franchise” potential, why trade that for a chance that another young quarterback would suddenly do what young quarterbacks like Tarvaris Jackson and Christian Ponder couldn’t with Peterson present?
Regardless, it will all come to a head -- or it won’t -- on April 30 or May 1. If it happens sooner, that’s not good for the Vikings. If it happens later, the team that trades for Peterson had better have one or more veteran players to offer that will help the Vikings be better in 2015.
