Adrian Peterson is eligible to be reinstated into the NFL next year, but he’s not so sure he wants to play football anymore.
“I’ve considered retiring from the NFL,” Peterson told ESPN. “I still made $8 million this year. I’ve thought about getting back into the real estate [business in Texas] I’m already in. That’s something I’ve been interested in, something I’m involved in. I’ve thought about getting back into that. I’ve thought about going after the Olympics — you only live once. It might be time for me to pursue that, as well. I love playing football, don’t get me wrong, but this situation is deeper than that. For me, it’s like, ‘Why should I continue to be a part of an organization or a business that handles players the way they do? Making money off the field anyway, why not continue to pursue that [Olympic] dream and pursue other dreams and hang up the cleats?'”
So what Olympic sport would Peterson try? He says he’d like to go for the 200-meter or 400-meter dash.
“I’ve seriously thought about this real hard. I continue to pray about it, but it’s been something that has been heavy, heavy on my heart,” Peterson said.
Let’s be honest: Peterson is delusional if he thinks he has any chance of being a track and field Olympian. Yes, Peterson is very fast by the standards of a normal human being, and even by the standards of an NFL player. No, Peterson is nowhere near as fast as an Olympic sprinter. If Peterson is serious about trying to qualify for the Olympics, he’d have a better chance at a more specialized sport like the bobsled (a transition another former Vikings running back, Herschel Walker, has made) or rugby (which Willis McGahee is trying).
But Peterson probably isn’t still going to be thinking about the Olympics once the disappointment from losing his appeal yesterday wears off. Peterson will almost certainly fight to get back on the field, and he’ll likely be in the NFL in 2015.