Vikings fined for having Adrian Peterson wear Chester Taylor’s uniform

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — It’s been a year of deception in the NFL.

Only months after the New England Patriots got the league’s largest ever fine, the Minnesota Vikings received a $250,000 fine for having standout rookie Adrian Peterson swap uniforms with Chester Taylor during the Vikes’ 27-7 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

“I have Adrian Peterson in my big-money fantasy league,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. “So I’m scanning through the boxscores, checking to see how my team is doing, and I see that Adrian Peterson is getting shut down by San Francisco. Red flag. Then I see that Chester Taylor is going off. Double red flag! I immediately demanded to see the game film.”

Goodell was stunned by what he saw.

“Here is AP going for 3 yards on 14 carries,” Goodell said. “AP! I couldn’t believe my eyes. He’s going for negative yards, he’s showing no burst, he’s going down at first contact. Then I see Chester Taylor go off for 101 yards, including an 84-yard score. Well, it wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on.”

Indeed, it turns out that the Vikings had encouraged Taylor to dress up as Peterson, and Peterson to dress as Taylor. Both players agreed, though Peterson was reluctant; however, Taylor convinced him that it would really “ease the pressure, if only for a week.”

“It was probably an error in judgment,” said Vikings coach Brad Childress. “But we really wanted to give Adrian a little breather from the watchful eyes of the nation. I mean, everyone is tuning in, expecting him to do something great every play. So we just thought, wouldn’t it be nice if we could give him a game of total anonymity? Then it hit us – BAM! Let’s dress him up as Chester Taylor.”

Goodell was furious.

“In this league, you play every game as hard as you can, and you wear your own jersey,” he said. “A lot of bad things can come from dressing up as a teammate. You may get hurt, and we might bill the wrong health insurance. You may get pegged for an endorsement, and the money could go to the wrong person. Or maybe you go off for 124 yards of total offense and a touchdown and your commissioner might get the giant screwjob in his fantasy league because of your stupid, insensitive, immoral and outrageous actions. It’s just a bad, bad thing to do.”

It’s going to be tough for this sport to sweep any nations, but it’s still pretty frickin’ cool!