Adrian Peterson's longstanding gripe with the Minnesota Vikings was eventually settled because he's Adrian Peterson and there's still not a running back in football who can have more of an impact on a game plan week in and week out.
But this was repackaged to fans as a push for veteran leadership as well. The Vikings have a young team and who better to pace the offense than the greatest running back of the past decade.
So it goes.
After Sunday's 38-7 beat down at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks, Peterson questioned the play calling of offensive coordinator Norv Turner, and suggested the Vikings were outcoached in "so many different areas," according to NFL Media columnist Michael Silver.
"As one of the leaders on the team, seeing how the running game has been all season, you definitely want to be able to go out and establish the run and let things feed off of that," he said. "To finish with eight carries, it's tough. I feel like we're able to sit back, evaluate some things again and get back to what we do."
The problem with Peterson's theory is that the Vikings were down by three touchdowns by halftime, and Seattle scored again at the nine-minute mark of the third quarter. If he wants to argue maybe 13 carries instead of eight, that's fine, but aren't we splitting hairs a bit? How much longer could the Vikings have legitimately stayed with the run before people wondered if they were trying to just end the game? Turner is a good offensive coordinator and Zimmer is a very good head coach. If Peterson was a great leader, isn't this the time to back the coach who has helped spark this turnaround instead of publicly expressing your doubts?
Turner and Zimmer are absolutely sure that Peterson is the best option for this offense. How could they not be? Last week against the Falcons he carried the ball almost 30 times in the perfect kind of game for Peterson to do so. When the situation is right, he gets his touches.
