ap all day

[RigoEsBueno]

now im not a vikings fan, a texans kinda guy, but i really admire a player who can dominate the field the way adrian peterson has. I recently heard that he plans to crush the current single season record, 2500 yrds i believe he said, and the carrer record by 2017. now i believe that its possible, but should we as sports football fans be worried that he is going to run himself into the ground by being overly ambitious?

[McJacs2]

No, as long as his knees hold up. 

Edited August 1, 2013 by McJacs2

[RigoEsBueno]

his injury last season is still lingering in my mind

Edited August 1, 2013 by RigoEsBueno

[Jc_Nz]

If any Running back currently in the NFL could do it, its him. As far as im aware he takes more snaps than most other running backs in the league so he has a real shot. Im a ravens man, but i really hope he does it!

[VenlafaxineHead]

I've been a Vikings fan since 1987 and I've had a lot of heartbreak over the years.  Now that I'm older, I generally care a lot less about sports and am a casual fan. 

 

I've watched every game AP has played in and he's pretty special.  As long as Christian Ponder remains the QB, I guarantee AP will get plenty of touches.  Ponder is awful and couldn't throw a pass if his life depended on it. 

[grimydawg___]

I've been a Vikings fan since 1987 and I've had a lot of heartbreak over the years.  Now that I'm older, I generally care a lot less about sports and am a casual fan. 

 

I've watched every game AP has played in and he's pretty special.  As long as Christian Ponder remains the QB, I guarantee AP will get plenty of touches.  Ponder is awful and couldn't throw a pass if his life depended on it. 

 

At least he's not Mark Sanchez lol

[acasser]

Adrian Peterson has as much of a chance of fulfilling those lofty goals he's declared for himself as I do of marrying a Victoria's Secret fashion model and being elected President of the United States in 2016.  In short:  none.  The mountain of evidence assembled regarding how athletes age and perform says Peterson can only do it if he significantly out-performs everyone in the history of sports from this point forward, because running backs don't age well and they don't keep putting up the kinds of numbers that Peterson has averaged in his career, let alone the numbers he recorded last year or declares he's going to record going forward.

 

Past that, I'm more than a little skeptical that Peterson is "clean" from a drug-testing point of view.  The cross-section of medical history and sports says that he shouldn't have been able to recover as quickly as he did and perform at such a high level without some chemical enhancement.... most likely HGH to significantly speed the healing process.  As soon as the NFL gets a reliable HGH test in place -- and that date almost certainly in the very near future -- I think Peterson could be in some trouble.  The HGH has probably flushed out of his system by now, but I don't see how he'd maintain anything close to last year's pace without some sort of doping regimen.

 

He's not going to rush for 2500 yards, either this season or any other, unless the NFL goes to a 20-game schedule in the near future.  He's not going to break the career rushing mark, either -- not in 2017, and not after that.  And if history is any indicator, he's going to see a precipitous decline in his numbers THIS YEAR, because every player who has rushed for 2000 yards in a single season has watched his production crater shortly thereafter.

[Brawler]

I wouldn't be shocked if he beat either of the records, truth be told. He's an all around player who is quite possibly the best definition as a workhorse in the sports world. The Vikings haven't had much around him and with Percy Harvin gone it's only going to get tougher in my opinion. That said, he'll consistently still take the most snaps and deliver.

 

Given his playstyle however, I'm going to say he's prone to aging even worse than the average player in these next few years. Peterson is the type of back who hits the people who are trying to hit him, you can only run people over for so many years while having the majority of the workload on your shoulders. It will all catch up with him eventually, I'd like to think he shatters a few records before the damage is done. 2500 is beyond steep, given the fact in a 17 game season that's just about 156 yards a game. If anybody WERE to do it, he would be my pick however I really don't see it happening.

 

As for the whole HGH thing...I really don't feel like condemning him before any testing is done. It's definitely a possibility given just the facts, however I'm not going to really say much on the topic until it becomes an issue. AP is a great player, but I quickly grew tired of his personality a while back when he said his line of work is similar to slavery. After that I kind of decided to ignore what he says and just watch him play.

[acasser]

I wouldn't be shocked if he beat either of the records, truth be told. He's an all around player who is quite possibly the best definition as a workhorse in the sports world. The Vikings haven't had much around him and with Percy Harvin gone it's only going to get tougher in my opinion. That said, he'll consistently still take the most snaps and deliver.

 

If the Vikings don't have anything resembling a quality passing threat, Peterson is going to see eight and nine men in the box every single snap.  If the Vikings can't keep games close -- and with their offense, that's a real possibility -- that's going to limit Peterson's rushing attempts.  Teams will take away AP and dare the other Vikings to beat them.

 

Also worth noting:  The previous three guys who rushed for 2000 yards (before Peterson) never came close again.  There wasn't just a precipitous drop in overall rushing yards, but also in related numbers such as yards/carry.  That implies that a lot of rushing for 2000 yards in a single season is having a lot of good luck, and luck is even harder to replicate than all the other factors. 

 

Peterson averaged 6.0 YPC last year, and that's an insanely high number.  Even if he keeps himself up around 5.0 this season -- and 5.0 is his career average including last season -- he's almost certainly not going to get the touches to come anywhere near 2000 yards.  If he gets the 400 carries that would help him do that, it's just this side of an ironclad guarantee that he'll be on the scrap heap in 2-3 years because that's what has happened to every running back who had that volume of touches.

 

Peterson is not going to break any records and is not going to come close to his boasting unless he's the one outlier from a lengthy history of NFL running backs.  Peterson is not going to break any all-time rushing records unless he shatters the records for what running backs produce at and beyond the age of 28.  And I don't see any particular reason why he's going to be that guy.