07-13-2018, 02:05 AM
When the Vikings made it official that they were moving on from Peterson in March 2017, general manager Rick Spielman put the team’s 2007 first-round pick in the category of the best players in the franchise’s existence.
There’s a fascinating dichotomy about Peterson’s time in Minnesota. On one hand, the Vikings’ future Hall of Fame running back ran away with the title of the team’s best running back. The next best runner Robert Smith has nearly 5,000 less yards on the ground. Two players — Chuck Foreman and Bill Brown — are tied for second place behind AP in rushing touchdowns with 52, Peterson has 97 TDs. He’s pretty far ahead of Foreman in Football Reference’s Approximate Value with 104, compared to Foreman’s 90. And he’s No. 1 in yards per carry despite some down years in that category recently.
Aside from two years with Brett Favre, the Vikings’ running back was the face of its franchise. What luck for the club to have another superhuman megastar to follow Randy Moss’s incredible career. But the other side of the coin is that the Vikings simply didn’t win with Peterson as their centerpiece.
Without Favre, they won zero playoff games. He fumbled twice in the Vikings’ famous loss to New Orleans in ’09 and once in the near-win against Seattle in 2015. Overall in the postseason, Peterson averaged 10 yards less per game in the playoffs than regular season and 1.3 yards less per carry. His lone playoff game over 100 yards was the Saints loss.
Not to mention that in five playoff games, he managed just six catches on 10 targets for 54 yards.
It’s hard to form one player’s legacy based on team wins. It’s not Peterson’s fault that his career opened in a year in which Tarvaris Jackson, Kelly Holcomb and Brooks Bollinger all played quarterback. It isn’t his fault the team drafted Christian Ponder. It isn’t his fault Favre threw across his body or that Blair Walsh missed a 27-yard kick. He also didn’t play any role on the 2013 defense, which finished 32nd in the NFL.
But it’s also hard to ignore that the greatest times of Peterson’s career were often forgettable for his organization.
And it’s also hard not to wonder if his totals were pumped up by a lack of a passing game and whether his team’s passing game would have been better if the quarterbacks had a running back who was willing to block or was dangerous in the passing game.
Through the eyes of Vikings fans, there always seems to be a prevailing “yeah, but…” to Peterson’s legacy that’s hard to shake.
The national lens sees Peterson more favorably. It focuses more on his individual accomplishments, like breaking the single-game record for rushing, averaging 6.0 yards per carry or likely being the last ever to run for 2,000-plus yards.
http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2018/0...ll-legacy/
There’s a fascinating dichotomy about Peterson’s time in Minnesota. On one hand, the Vikings’ future Hall of Fame running back ran away with the title of the team’s best running back. The next best runner Robert Smith has nearly 5,000 less yards on the ground. Two players — Chuck Foreman and Bill Brown — are tied for second place behind AP in rushing touchdowns with 52, Peterson has 97 TDs. He’s pretty far ahead of Foreman in Football Reference’s Approximate Value with 104, compared to Foreman’s 90. And he’s No. 1 in yards per carry despite some down years in that category recently.
Aside from two years with Brett Favre, the Vikings’ running back was the face of its franchise. What luck for the club to have another superhuman megastar to follow Randy Moss’s incredible career. But the other side of the coin is that the Vikings simply didn’t win with Peterson as their centerpiece.
Without Favre, they won zero playoff games. He fumbled twice in the Vikings’ famous loss to New Orleans in ’09 and once in the near-win against Seattle in 2015. Overall in the postseason, Peterson averaged 10 yards less per game in the playoffs than regular season and 1.3 yards less per carry. His lone playoff game over 100 yards was the Saints loss.
Not to mention that in five playoff games, he managed just six catches on 10 targets for 54 yards.
It’s hard to form one player’s legacy based on team wins. It’s not Peterson’s fault that his career opened in a year in which Tarvaris Jackson, Kelly Holcomb and Brooks Bollinger all played quarterback. It isn’t his fault the team drafted Christian Ponder. It isn’t his fault Favre threw across his body or that Blair Walsh missed a 27-yard kick. He also didn’t play any role on the 2013 defense, which finished 32nd in the NFL.
But it’s also hard to ignore that the greatest times of Peterson’s career were often forgettable for his organization.
And it’s also hard not to wonder if his totals were pumped up by a lack of a passing game and whether his team’s passing game would have been better if the quarterbacks had a running back who was willing to block or was dangerous in the passing game.
Through the eyes of Vikings fans, there always seems to be a prevailing “yeah, but…” to Peterson’s legacy that’s hard to shake.
The national lens sees Peterson more favorably. It focuses more on his individual accomplishments, like breaking the single-game record for rushing, averaging 6.0 yards per carry or likely being the last ever to run for 2,000-plus yards.
http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2018/0...ll-legacy/
