NFL: Minnesota Vikings at Dallas Cowboys

Today, the Minnesota Vikings announced that they would be reinstating Adrian Peterson, only a few days after they had deactivated Peterson for Sunday’s contest against the Patriots due to reports of Peterson allegedly beating one of his kids with a switch.

The sudden reinstatement raised some eyebrows but for one group of Vikings’ fan forum, the decision to allow Peterson back into the Vikings locker room was the last straw. VikingsMessageBoard.com has shut down permanently and they’ve cited the Vikings’ handling of the Peterson case as the reason why:

Vikings Message Board has been shut down permanently. It will not return. There are two primary reasons.
1. The Vikings cowardly decision to reinstate a child abuser and think that an apology will make this blow over. We will not stand for this arrogance and we will no longer be the home of any support of the Vikings. We stand for those who cannot defend themselves.
2. We will not give a voice to those who think child abuse is “cultural” or worse, openly advocate child abuse as a reasonable method of punishment. This ends here. Yes, a few board members have ruined it for everyone. Congratulations, assholes.
edit: we have replaced the word “thugs” with “those” to avoid any potential racial connotation. it wasn’t intended and appears to be distracting from the real message that child abuse is never okay.

The question of whether it is even ethical to watch NFL games has already been tossed around by national NFL writers, but it seems that some Vikings fans have already had enough.

According to Sports Illustrated, VikingsMessageBoard.com had been in operation since 2005.

[VikingsMessageBoard] [Sports Illustrated]