The NFL offseason is underway.
While football fans won’t see any game action for several months, that doesn’t mean there won’t be a bevy of NFL news in the meantime. Between the upcoming scouting combine, NFL Draft and free agency period, fans will be sure to get their football fix.
Some teams, like the New York Giants, wasted no time grabbing headlines in the early stages of the offseason with the releases of wideout Victor Cruz and running back Rashad Jennings.
The transactions came as a surprise to many, including Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who shared his thoughts on the news via Twitter.
This is not the first time Peterson has spoken about the Giants this offseason. Appearing on ESPN’s “First Take” on Jan. 19, Peterson listed the G-Men as one of the teams he’d consider if he were to move on from the Vikings.
Though Peterson has been one of the premier running backs in the league since his arrival in 2007, a departure from Minnesota is a very real possibility. According to Sportrac, Peterson is set to account for an $18 million cap hit in 2017, which will be the last year of his current contract with the Vikings.
Peterson will be 32 years old on March 21, and his history of injuries in recent years makes him somewhat of a liability for Minnesota moving forward. It’s expected that the team will ask him to take a pay cut, but if those terms can’t be agreed upon, a release would not be shocking.
Either way, an active player commenting on another NFL team’s offseason moves is rather unorthodox. Was this Peterson’s way of expressing his interest in the Giants? Or maybe it was a means of trying to force Minnesota’s hand.
We’ll probably never find out the true meaning behind Peterson’s tweet, if there even is an underlying message at all. But between Peterson and other marquee NFL players on the rumor mill, it seems as though fans could be in store for some offseason fireworks.
Thumbnail photo via Brad Rempel/USA TODAY Sports Images
