Peterson a hot topic at Winter Park for one last day

A day after news broke that Adrian Peterson was suspended for the rest of the season, the media circus was at Winter Park to set up the big top one last time.

Most of the national outlets left on-air talent back in their heated studios and their satellite trucks parked at home because it was too cold Wednesday for standups.

A little after 11 a.m., the doors opened and unfamiliar faces flooded the locker room and shined their lights into the eyes of brave souls who dared to venture inside to grab something from their stalls.

And when the doors were shut again, they descended on the pizza boxes outside the media room, chatted it up in the lobby until most of the boxes were empty and then packed up for the next football town and the next big national story.

All that was left was a 4-6 Vikings team with little shot at making the playoffs and virtually no chance of getting its best player back to assist in the improbable task.

The Vikings did get reinforcement at running back, claiming veteran Ben Tate after he was waived by Cleveland.

And they also finally got some closure with the Peterson decision, whatever that was worth.

When the players — some of whom didn't bother reading NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's explanation for suspending Peterson — arrived at Winter Park on Wednesday morning, coach Mike Zimmer debriefed them on the situation, offered his opinion on the suspension and tried to get them to move on to Sunday's game against the Green Bay Packers.

"He gave us his opinions on it, which we'll keep in the locker room and keep to ourselves," defensive end Brian Robison said.

Publicly, Zimmer didn't say much about Peterson.

"Not really much has changed," Zimmer said. "I still say exactly what I've said before, that I support him and his family and he's been great with me, but other than that our focus is on Green Bay and we've got to move forward. It's just the way life is."

After winning the season opener with Peterson in the backfield, the Vikings deactivated Peterson five days later when child abuse charges were filed against him in Texas.

Then, a three-ring media circus descended on Winter Park, with nine camera trucks parked outside the building and 19 cameras inside. Reporters shouted questions at General Manager Rick Spielman. Zimmer had to come up with answers, too, not only for Peterson questions but also for the New Orleans Saints game that loomed that weekend.

The Vikings didn't seem distracted in a 20-9 loss to the Saints. They were simply overmatched in a game during which they lost their starting quarterback and two other offensive standouts.

The Peterson storm then soon died down, and Zimmer and the Vikings bore down, overcoming the loss of Peterson to post a respectable 4-6 record through 10 games.

"Coach Zimmer has done a great job of it. It could be a distraction, with the way that the media is," rookie running back Jerick McKinnon said. "But Coach Zimmer has definitely done a great job of whenever things happened taking our focus off that, keeping it on the team and the season and what we could get done."

On Wednesday, with Peterson, suspended until at least April 15, back in the headlines possibly one last time, the national media was back, though the gathering wasn't as large as it was in September and the tones were more hushed.

"It's always been on our minds," cornerback Josh Robinson said. "I think we've always, of course, wanted him back. But … all we could do was sit back and wait on it all to be done. Now that they've made their decision, all we can do is move on."

A couple of hours later, after the pizza and most of the out-of-town media was gone, the Vikings were inside their practice facility preparing for the Packers, back to business as usual.

Or at least what they've become accustomed to in life without Peterson.