Silence would be golden for Vikings' Peterson

Newsprint costing what it does, there wasn't enough room in the Star Tribune for all of my sagacious words for a period of time. I would write occasional blogs for the website of my radio employer, AM-1500 (as the Strib labels it).

On Oct. 17, 2013, I wrote a piece that carried the headline, "There are sad examples of lost images for athletes." It was written in the wake of the death of a 2-year-old that Adrian Peterson fathered, followed by the TMZ report that the little boy beaten to death by some lout in Sioux Falls, S.D., was among seven Peterson children with various women.

To me, the information that Peterson had never met the boy before he was comatose in the hospital, followed by the report that he had kids hither and yon, was a substantial blow to Adrian's all-around good guy image.

And that's what I wrote:

How was Peterson going to handle it, because I had seen loss of image ruin the life of Kirby Puckett and the career of Daunte Culpepper, and transform Tiger Woods from invincible to uncertain?

Commenters to the article balked at the notion people would think less of Peterson now that his fathering habits had been revealed. One woman commented: "Sad how this is only about AP but doesn't say a word about how these women had sex with AP without protection. … It's just like all the rest of the media, trying to tarnish the image of a man who just lost his 2-year-old that he just found out existed."

Another comment summarized the general theme from fans: "I don't see how he has lost his image over losing his son. He did not know about this child, so it is not as if he ignored this child. To me, this is a cheap shot at a man who is grieving over a son he never had a chance to know.

Today, the love has waned. Today, the more outrage that you can aim toward Peterson, the more applause you are likely to receive from Vikings fans.

I had serious doubts about Peterson's brainpower dating to the 2011 owners' lockout of players when he said, "It's modern-day slavery, you know."

Then, in June 2013, as Peterson kept trying to make sure we all knew how straight he was with his babbling over gay marriage and gay players in the locker room, I decided he was officially a dimwit.

A few months later came the death of the 2-year-old, and the TMZ report on the vastness of his progeny, and then last year, the thunderbolt: the revelation of the whipping of a 4-year-old son, confirming that random fatherhood hadn't been a successful game plan for Peterson.

Here's what amazes me:

But now Peterson has committed the unpardonable sin for the Purple Faithful. He has failed to show up for Organized Team Activities at Winter Park.

Worse yet, on Thursday he sent out a series of incoherent tweets defending his attempt to get longer-term guaranteed money from the Vikings before returning to the team.

One day earlier, I actually felt good about Peterson for the first time since October 2013, when I was repulsed as he accepted sympathy from around the NFL and in the national media for the death of his 2-year-old son, without immediately pausing to say: "I actually had never met the poor little guy."

What I felt good about Wednesday was that Peterson finally told his pal Josina Anderson at ESPN that the issue was no longer hurt feelings; it was now about money, and turning some of those non-guaranteed millions after 2015 into real money.

Anybody who wants more of Zygi Wilf's money, after the Vikings owner needlessly decided to tap his ticket holders for $125 million in seat licenses after getting the second-largest public contribution to an NFL stadium in history …