clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Adrian Peterson Did Not Appear At Disciplinary Hearing On Friday

By Christopher Gates
Bob Levey

Something interesting just came over the wire from Adam Schefter concerning the Adrian Peterson situation. The news, from Schefter's Facebook page, is as follows:

Vikings RB Adrian Peterson declined to appear Friday at a scheduled disciplinary hearing with NFL despite agreeing to meeting earlier last week, per an NFL official.

The NFL also charged that Peterson would not give the NFL an alternative date for the disciplinary hearing in connection to his violation of law in an incident of family violence.

This is a different, more significant hearing than the conference call set for 2 p.m. Monday, about when Peterson's grievance relating to remaining on the commissioner's exempt list will be heard. The Friday meeting was the one that would have been for a disciplinary decision on Peterson's past and future.

The Friday meeting initially was scheduled last Tuesday, but the NFLPA told the league on Thursday that it was unavailable that day, per league official.

"We informed the union that we were unwilling to postpone the hearing beyond this week given that the player and union had both expressed a strong desire to resolve this matter as soon as possible and we had been given no meaningful reason why Adrian and the union could not appear and participate," said a league official. "We offered other alternatives for this week, but those also were not acceptable. We also have yet to receive more than cursory materials in response to our requests for information on the case. Accordingly, we went forward with the review on Friday as scheduled.

"We had hoped that Adrian would take advantage of his opportunity to be heard and present whatever information he believes should be considered before a decision on discipline, counseling and services is made. Because he and the NFLPA elected not to do so, we will have to address this based on the information currently available to us."

NFLPA spoksperson George Atallah said Peterson's attorney Rusty Hardin provided the NFL with a letter saying it is against Texas state law to give the NFL the requested documents. The NFLPA also said it made Peterson's clinician available to the NFL.

"The League office seems more focused on creating an arbitrary disciplinary process for Adrian instead of honoring a signed agreement to remove him from the Commissioner's list," Atallah emailed Saturday. "They are simply making stuff up as they go along. They should commit their efforts to meeting us at the table to collectively bargain a new personal conduct policy."

I'm not completely sure what the thinking in the Peterson camp is behind him missing this hearing. The hearing that will happen on Monday concerning Peterson's grievance with the National Football League will be conducted via conference call.

With the league saying that they are going to make their decision "based on the information available to them," I'm guessing that any potential discipline is not going to be favorable to the Peterson camp. It has been reported over the past week or so that Peterson could get less than the 6-game suspension that the league's Personal Conduct Policy calls for pending talks between the NFLPA and the league. Unless I'm misinterpreting things, those talks were supposed to take place at this Friday meeting.

It's entirely possible that I'm completely wrong on this. Hopefully more will come out on this in the near future.

EDIT: A bit of clarification from our friend Tom Pelissero, via the Twitter.

In This Stream

The Adrian Peterson Saga

View all 105 stories

More From Daily Norseman