Almost all rookies spend their time learning. Adrian Peterson has spent his impressing.
Minnesota’s rookie running back has burst on to the scene quicker than he bursts into the secondary, where he doesn’t meet would-be tacklers so much as he pulverizes them.
He did it in his team’s second preseason game, against the Jets, when Peterson sent a message to the defender who got in his way and anyone else who was watching.
The league had a new beauty and a beast.
Peterson is now storming the league, just the way Jim Brown did when he won the NFL’s MVP as a rookie in 1957, or Gale Sayers did when he scored six touchdowns in one game and 22 in his rookie season of 1965, or Earl Campbell did when he humiliated the Miami Dolphins on a memorable Monday nigher in 1978, or Eric Dickerson did when he set the single-season rookie rushing record with 1,808 yards in 1983, or Barry Sanders did when he ran for 1,470 yards despite missing all of training camp in 1989.
Peterson is next in line, accomplishing feats no other rookie runner ever has. He has two 200-yard rushing games the past month. He is on pace to rush for a mind-boggling 2,072 yards. He’s not just the Rookie of the Year. He’s the Rookie of the Decade, and making a run at more.