| Andrew Perna. 17th November, 2007 - 8:58 pm
 Something very special has been taken from all of us. The Minnesota Vikings may have lost their stud running back, but midway through November their games cease to hold much meaning. It’s football fans around the world that are truly at a loss a little more than halfway through the 2007 NFL season.
History can still be made before the books are closed this January, but should the New England Patriots falter down the stretch, no one will remember this season for anything spectacular. Many teams have threatened the ’72 Dolphins undefeated record, but they always seem to fade from the limelight a few weeks short of matching Miami’s historic run.
Aside from their die hard fans, who remembers that the Vikings went 15-1 less than a decade ago, or that the Indianapolis Colts seem to threaten the thirty-five year old record on an annual basis?
Tom Brady, Randy Moss and Bill Belichick, in all their offensive glory, might turn 2007 into the year of the 19-0 Pats, but we were just a few weeks away from anointing it the season of Adrian Peterson.
Entering the draft out of Oklahoma there was serious concern about Peterson’s durability and doubt as to whether he could carry the load for an NFL team. Nine weeks into the season he had silenced all of his critics, leading the league in rushing and becoming Minnesota’s featured running back in the process.
A little more than a week later a majority of Adrian’s critics are still mute, expect the ones still adamant about his difficulty remaining healthy. He missed significant time last season with a broken collarbone, and now his season is in jeopardy thanks to a torn ligament in his right knee. The Vikings maintain that he’ll to return to the gridiron in 2007, but at least one doctor has advised strongly against it.
Even if Peterson does returns to the field, we still don’t know if he’ll be able to play with the same intensity and reckless abandon that leaves him open to injuries on more plays than Vikings’ coach Brad Childress would prefer to watch.
In his record-setting game against the San Diego Chargers it wasn’t just his second, but often his third and fourth efforts that allowed him to set a new single-game rushing record. Adrian runs with such force and determination that his legs are often still churning after officials have blown their whistles. That kind of effort, while extremely respected, is going to lend itself to more fumbling and bruising than the average runner experiences while simply trying to move the chains.
What’s depressing about Peterson’s injury, which is serious despite what he says, is that it’s taken a historic season away from not only Adrian and the Vikings, but pigskin-obsessed fans around the globe.
What LaDainian Tomlinson accomplished with the Chargers last season was both exciting and jaw-dropping, but we saw it coming. From the first time he stepped on the field with San Diego in 2001 you could see the greatness those Texas Christian legs possessed. Each and every week of the 2006 season you could set your watch to a pair of L.T. touchdowns without being late to Sunday dinner. He was, and still is, that good. The Chargers offensive line and core of blockers are that talented and determined. The stars seemed to be aligned for Tomlinson – the touchdown record was his for the taking.
The first ten games of Peterson’s career embodied a different feeling. Each and every week he seemed to be trumping the previous week’s performance. Had he not gone down against the Green Bay Packers there’s no telling what he would have done in the final fifteen minutes of the game.
Unlike Tomlinson, who has blossomed into one of the league’s most well-known and marketable players, Peterson was relative unknown when the season began. If you didn’t follow college football closely in recent years, you may have even missed Peterson entirely. JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn were getting a majority of the NCAA and draft-related headlines, while Peterson was busy trying to improve his stock in spite of a season-ending injury. The Vikings, who seemed content with Chester Taylor last season, were happy to see the Sooner fall into their lap at the seventh pick.
If Peterson isn’t able to suit up again this season, or cannot play with the same intensity we have become accustom to over the last two months, we will have been robbed of what could have been one of the greatest individual seasons in football history. Not to mention one of the most spectacular debuts the NFL has ever seen.
Sure, Tomlinson’s run in ‘06 was great, Peyton Manning’s 49 touchdown passes were historic and the Patriots could become just the second team in history to finish a season undefeated, but Peterson may have been able to top all of that without an ounce of NFL experience under his belt.
Like a cargo ship at sea, we may have been robbed by a Viking once again.
Condolences to Peterson fans? Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com |
