Countless hours over the last several months have been spent speculating how the marriage between running back Adrian Peterson and the Minnesota Vikings would end. But as it turns out, rumors of the demise of that relationship have been greatly exaggerated.

Peterson reported to and participated in Vikings camp on Tuesday for the second week of Minnesota’s voluntary Organized Team Activities, and both he and the team began the process mending fences through the media in the wake of some very public disputes over the past several weeks.

“I had a long time to really think about things and ultimately what it came down to was getting back in the building. I’ve been working out hard, been keeping my body in shape. And it came down to getting back in the building, being around my teammates, being around the coaches and getting back into the swing of things,” Peterson said. “I’m happy with where I’m at here with the Minnesota Vikings. I love the coaching staff…we have a young team, hungry team, excellent young quarterback who has a year under his belt now and we have a lot of talent. We can accomplish great things.”

Since Peterson was reinstated off the commissioner’s exempt list back in April, it had been widely assumed that a trade would occur to put AP in a different uniform for the first time in his career to start the 2015 season. But after the NFL draft passed with no such trade, that scenario became increasingly less likely. In fact, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said on Tuesday that the team never even entertained trading Peterson, noting that he’s repeatedly communicated and met with AP since the season ended to express his desire to have him on the field with the Vikings in 2015.

“This guy is a Hall of Fame player, he’s not just a guy to come in off the street, this guy is really, really special and I love his heart and his competitiveness, the way he wants to win,” Zimmer said. “I love this kid, I really do. I’ve said this all along. I wouldn’t fly down to Houston to see him if he wasn’t important to me and to my program and to our coaches and to the rest of the football team.”

Believe that if you will, but the truth probably lies somewhere in between. If Minnesota had received an enticing offer of a package of draft picks for the 30-year-old running back, he’d likely be wearing a color other than purple this week. However offers never materialized and so the Vikings were never motivated to move on.

After their attempts to get him traded went for naught, Peterson and his agent Ben Dogra made plenty of threats over the last several weeks to boycott the Vikings offseason program due to the running back’s unhappiness with his contract situation. Peterson even took his displeasure to Twitter last week, voicing concern with not only his own contract, but with the lack of guarantees given to NFL players in their contracts on the whole.

AP has three years and over $44 million left on his contract, but none of it is guaranteed and he and Dogra were seeking to change that before he reported to Vikings camp. However they had no leverage, and so, rather than waiting things out, letting this linger and perhaps costing himself money by missing mandatory dates in the Minnesota training program, Peterson proved all his threats empty by showing up voluntarily. Minnesota’s mandatory minicamp does not begin until June 18.

On Tuesday, Peterson spoke openly about his back and forth with the Vikings over the last several months and said that in the wake of his lost 2014 season, he was unsure what he wanted and confused where the next phase of his career should take him. He didn’t admit to regretting some of the things that were said in the last several months, but he spoke like a person who was seeking clarity and finally found it in his return to Minnesota.

“I’m going to be absolutely 100 percent with you. With everything going on in my life during that time, I really didn’t know what I wanted,” he said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to play somewhere else, if I wanted to retire, if I wanted to go off and get into track, just change it up differently, just do something different. That’s where receiving advice from my parents and my advisors really played a big role.”

Hopefully not lost in the talk of contracts and trades is the reason why we are here. Peterson missed most of the 2014 season because he was arrested on child abuse charges stemming from an incident in which he disciplined his four-year old son through the use of a switch. Though he reached a plea deal to avoid jail time, the facts of the case do not change.

The good news is, Peterson has sought out and seems to have gotten help. He continued to express remorse over the incident in his remarks to the press on Tuesday. He noted that he is still working to rebuild his relationship with his son and is also getting valuable lessons on what it is to be a parent.

“I’m definitely not the victim and I haven’t tried to play the victim in this role,” he said. “I made a mistake and I know a lot of people don’t view it that way based off what they saw but ultimately that’s what it was. My son knows that, he knows that I love him and my other kids they know the same…I learned that I’ve actually been doing a pretty good job. There are so many different forms of discipline and whether that’s time out, taking toys away or snacks and things like that, whatever it might be, and those are forms of discipline that I use. I made a mistake and I’m not taking it lightly at all. It’s something that I regret and my son knows that and the people that truly know me and know my character and know what type of person that I am when I’m with my kids or around my kids, they know that as well. That’s really, to me, the only thing that matters.”

WELKER WANTS TO PLAY, OPEN TO PATS REUNION

After becoming a sort of forgotten man in the Denver Broncos offense late last season, Wes Welker has become a forgotten man free agency, still sitting without a contract despite minicamps being just a few weeks away. But despite a history of concussions that may be keeping teams away, Welker isn’t ready to call it a career.

“I want to play,” he said in a radio interview on WBZ-FM on Tuesday. “The more I’m away from it, the more I want to go out there and be on a team and everything else. It’s just kind of taking everything a day at a time, making sure I’m training and doing everything I need to do to be ready.”

The two-time All-Pro has enjoyed a fruitful 12-year career in the league with four different teams, most notably the New England Patriots and Broncos. He currently sits seventh among active players with 890 career catches, and has totaled nearly 10,000 receiving yards (9,822) and 50 touchdowns.

He’s also not far removed from being a very impactful player. In 2013, his first year with Denver, he caught a career-high 10 touchdown passes and has 18 catches during the team’s run to the Super Bowl. However his production fell last year, due in large part to his struggles with injuries, particularly concussions that have clouded the latter part of his career.

Still he’s hoping for another chance to prove he can still play the game at a high level.

“At times you’re sitting there and thinking, ‘Well maybe I should,’” Welker said, addressing the question of retirement. “But the more you think about it, and you’re away from it, I’m not ready to. I still feel good. I still feel like I have some really good football left in me. I’ve always said, until the wheels fall off.

“I think there are a handful of teams that are definitely an option,” Welker added. “If the right situation comes up and everything kind of pieces together then I’ll definitely play again.”

Could one of those teams be the one that helped make him a star, the New England Patriots? The highest points of his career came during Welker’s six-year run in New England, but the split between the two sides was less than amicable as Welker chose to leave the Pats for what appeared to be greener pastures in Denver.

However that did not work out as planned as the Broncos fell just short of their Super Bowl goal in his first season with the team, then were ousted from the playoffs early last year while New England went on to win the Super Bowl. For his part, Welker says he’d be open to a reunion, but really it’s up to the Patriots to reach out.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it. It’s a great organization, obviously, and a great team. It wouldn’t be the worst situation in the world. I don’t think there’s any hard feelings there. Definitely not from my side and I don’t think from [coach Bill Belichick] either. I’ve never ruled that out.”

NEWTON EXTENSION FINALIZED, WILSON NEXT?

The Carolina Panthers officially announced a contract extension with the quarterback Cam Newton on Tuesday that is set to pay the franchise signal-caller handsomely through the 2020 season.

Newton and the Panthers agreed to a five-year $103.8 million, with a reported $60 million in guaranteed money over the life of the extension according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

The value of Newton’s extension puts him on a higher tier than some of the other quarterbacks who recently signed extensions like Colin Kaepernick (seven years, $126 million), Andy Dalton (seven years, $96 million) and Ryan Tannehill (four years, $77 million). Instead Newton is now keeping company with the likes of Aaron Rodgers, who signed a five-year, $110 million extension in April of 2013.

The deal puts high expectations on Newton, who is still developing as a passer, to be one of the league’s elite quarterbacks. But despite the lofty numbers and the questions that surround Newton’s ceiling, it’s a move the Panthers had to make to secure their franchise quarterback, something few teams have and the rest yearn for, before the final year of his rookie deal.

With Newton the latest to join the $20 million quarterback club, eyes now turn toward two other quarterbacks recognized as superior talents who are still playing out their rookie deals: Seattle’s Russell Wilson and Indianapolis’ Andrew Luck.

Late in the 2014 season it appeared almost a foregone conclusion that Wilson would be the next quarterback to join that club, ahead of even Newton. Wilson is also entering the last season of his rookie deal, which is set to pay the third round pick just over $1.5 million, and the Seahawks have worked in the last several years to extend their franchise difference makers on team and player friendly deals. But the quarterback position is a different animal and so Wilson waits.

For his part, the quarterback has played it cool, participated in OTAs this week and even acknowledged plans to play out the final year of his rookie deal if an extension does not materialize. That seems an unlikely scenario though, especially for Seattle.

“Hopefully I get to wear the Seahawks blue in No. 3 for a long time. But we’ll see what happens,” he said. “Ultimately I believe it will work out, hope that it does.”

Early this offseason, rumors surfaced that Wilson might be seeking the league’s first fully guaranteed contract extension. That likely won’t materialize, but the quarterback is set to make a fortune at the negotiating table and he and his agent both likely let out fist pumps upon hearing the numbers in Newton’s extension.

The same could likely be said for the representatives for Luck. The Colts quarterback and first overall pick in the 2012 draft still has two years remaining on his rookie deal. He’s set to make just over $7 million this year, including the remainder of his signing bonus and just over $16 million next season. Both sides are actively seeking to fortify that deal and Newton’s new contract probably means an extra chunk of change on Luck’s new deal as well.

The way this is likely to play out is that Wilson will receive an extension from the Seahawks in the next three months that should make him the highest paid quarterback in the league. But his status there won’t last long as Luck’s team will use that deal to get their quarterback even more money, and the Colts will have to make him the richest quarterback in the game.

All told, it’s a great time to be a NFL quarterback.