[Bathroom Reading] Trouble in Minnesota

In a stunning announcement by the league earlier today Vikings Running Back Adrian Peterson, one of the league's top rushers since his entrance into the league and a future first-ballot Hall of Famer, will be suspended for a week due to an unknown violation of the drug policy. League officials are being uncommonly quiet on the specific details surrounding the matter, possibly because of the high profile of the player involved.

The Vikings are expected to hold a press conference later in the evening to address the the fans and media about the matter.

This is sure to come as a big speed bump for the team who after suffering a poor season last year came out of the gates strong on the back of Peterson with a quality win over the Giants week 1 and an even bigger win over their division rival the Bears in week 2. Against the Giants Peterson had a solid performance in his team's opening of the season victory picking up a 100 yard game while taking in two touchdowns on the day. In his next game? He exploded on the Bears rumbling around the field for over 250 yards collecting five touchdowns along the way giving the Bears coaching staff fits throughout the game. The opposing team's offense just couldn't match the might put forward by the Vikings offense putting up 28 points equal to neither the Vikings second year Quarterback Carrington Maxwell who had 35 points to his credit or Adrian Peterson who tallied the same number. Final score: 70 - 28.

One must wonder what sort of show might have come versus the Green Bay Packers in the next game had Peterson not been hit with this misfortune. A well-known Packer-killer during his team in the NFC North Peterson obviously hit a hot streak right before presumably entering that game. Unfortunately for it is one that he likely won't be able to capitalize on two weeks after the fact in a match-up with, coincidentally enough, the Bears once again.

In the meantime with Adrian's suspension the Vikings will be playing with Beanie Wells as their starter. Beanie doesn't inspire much confidence around the league even as a 1 week start having bounced around teams after never living up to expectations in Arizona and the Vikings are being linked to a variety of rumors. Certain sources around the league place the Vikings front office entering discussions with the Philadelphia Eagles about Bryce Brown and the Seahawks about Turbin to be brought in to take the majority of the work or to at least take some carries away from Beanie Wells. Either running back would also serve the purpose of being quality insurance in case of a second suspension coming from their star player which is not necessarily out of the question given the recidivism rate of drug offenders throughout league history.

If a trade can not be consummated before the team leaves for Lambeau Field the Vikings organization is expected to invite a free agent running backs like Shonn Greene into their facilities to test their game readiness and to gauge a possible future with the team.

Everything is only conjecture at this point as no Vikings insider sources have confirmed or denied any of this, but there is precedent for talks like these to be explored. Adrian Peterson's suspension comes just two seasons after last year's Super Bowl winner Cameron Newton, the hotshot Panthers QB, was given a benching under a similar circumstance of violating the drug policy. It also comes just one season after another Quarterback, the Cleveland Browns Ryan Mallet, encountered league discipline after coming over from a trade with the Patriots.

Only the Browns took official action bringing in a quarterback via free agency to fill the hole, but the Panthers owner confirmed discussions went on to unseat the incumbent backup Derek Anderson prior to the game kicking off. Both decisions ended up with wins for the team and each came down to the wire. Whatever ends up happening it'll certainly be exciting to see what goes down in the land of the Vikings over the next week.