NFL Commissioner Suspends Adrian Peterson Without Pay for Remainder of the Season

By Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele, theRoot

The NFL sent Adrian Peterson a letter on Tuesday, notifying the Minnesota Vikings running back that he would be suspended for the remainder of the 2014-2015 season without pay, CNN is reporting.

“The timing of your potential reinstatement will be based on the results of the counseling and treatment program set forth in this decision,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in the letter.

Peterson was charged with felony child abuse in September for disciplining his 4-year-old son with a switch. He was initially placed on the NFL’s exempt/commissioner’s permission list—an employment status that allowed him to get paid but that kept him off the playing field. He eventually pleaded no contest to a charge of misdemeanor reckless assault.

Now the NFL wants Peterson to complete a rehabilitation program that the league has constructed for him. “Under this two-step approach, the precise length of the suspension will depend on your actions. We are prepared to put in place a program that can help you to succeed, but no program can succeed without your genuine and continuing engagement,” Goodell said in the letter.

The National Football League Players Association, the labor union representing NFL players, has expressed reservations about the suspension and will work with Peterson in his appeal of the league’s decision. The NFLPA “will ‘demand that a neutral arbitrator oversee the appeal,’ ” CNN reports.

“A hearing will now be scheduled and Peterson—with the counsel of a lawyer and the NFL Players Association—can present evidence in support of his appeal. He will remain on the commissioner’s exempt list until the appeal has run its course,” the report explains.

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