Adrian Peterson is going to be one of the greatest running backs of all time. No question in my mind.
Sure, he’s only played two seasons. But have you seen this guy?
Adrian Peterson started leaving cleat marks all over the league for the Minnesota Vikings two years ago, after leaving the Oklahoma Sooners as a junior. And his stats in the first two seasons put him among the NFL’s all-time elite.
To compare, I selected four of the greatest running backs to ever put on a helmet in the NFL: Jim Brown, who led the league in rushing for eight seasons in the 1950′s and 60′s; Barry Sanders, who once rushed for over 100 yards in 14 straight games; Emmitt Smith, who holds the career records for yards, carry attempts, and 100-yard games; and Walter Payton, the 5-time All-Pro who held all three of those records before Emmitt Smith broke them.
There are others who have made bigger marks as rookies (Eric Dickerson, George Rogers, and Ottis Anderson carried for the most yards in their first seasons), but one or two seasons don’t make a truly great running back.
My point isn’t to suggest that AP is the greatest. But my argument is that he is well, well on his way to becoming just that.
If Peterson’s numbers compare favorably to these five’s in their respective first two seasons, then he’s got a good start. I’ve nailed down three different statistical categories, to see if Peterson can hold his own.
Yards Per Carry
| Player | Tot. Yards | Carries | Yards/Carry |
| Jim Brown | 2469 | 459 | 5.38 |
| Barry Sanders | 2774 | 535 | 5.19 |
| Adrian Peterson | 3101 | 601 | 5.16 |
| Emmitt Smith | 2500 | 606 | 4.13 |
| Walter Payton | 2069 | 507 | 4.08 |
Peterson holds up in yards per carry, placing third among the five selected running backs. He leads all five in total rushing yards, with 3101. He’s legit.
The per-carry measure is important here since each of the five had a different number of carries over their first two seasons—from Jim Brown’s modest 459 to Emmitt Smith’s substantial 606.
Peterson had the second-most, with 601, which only begins to suggest the immediate positive impact that he has had on the Vikings. It becomes more remarkable when you recall that he sat two games his rookie season with a knee injury, and otherwise would have had the most total carries out of all five.
Touchdowns and Fumbles
| Player | TDs | TDs/Carry | Fumbles | Fumbles/Carry | TD:Fum Ratio |
| Barry Sanders | 27 | .050 | 14 | .026 | 1.929 |
| Jim Brown | 26 | .057 | 12 | .026 | 2.167 |
| Emmitt Smith | 23 | .038 | 15 | .025 | 1.533 |
| Adrian Peterson | 22 | .037 | 13 | .022 | 1.692 |
| Walter Payton | 20 | .039 | 19 | .037 | 1.053 |
Touchdowns and fumbles are a strange couple of statistics to lump together, but they stand as the single most positive and negative impacts a running back can have.
AP comes in second-to-last for total rushing touchdowns, beating only Chicago Bears alum Walter Payton with 22. But on the flip side, he also comes in second-best in fumbles with 13.
It is, however, also useful to break down touchdowns and fumbles into per-carry statistics, so they don’t get inflated by number of carries.
When we do that, Peterson actually drops to last in touchdowns, averaging .037 touchdowns per carry. He also jumps to the top spot in ball control, with .022 fumbles per carry. You win some, you lose some.
Finally, the touchdown-to-fumble ratio is an interesting one-look. AP falls safely right in the middle again, and kudos go to Jim Brown for putting points on the board without coughing up the ball very often. Impressive.
Receiving
| Player | Receptions | Yards | TDs |
| Barry Sanders | 60 | 762 | 3 |
| Emmitt Smith | 73 | 486 | 1 |
| Adrian Peterson | 40 | 393 | 1 |
| Walter Payton | 48 | 362 | 0 |
| Jim Brown | 32 | 193 | 2 |
The big winners in receiving out of the backfield are Barry Sanders, who spent his entire career with the Detroit Lions, and Emmitt Smith, who put in 13 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys before finishing his career with the Arizona Cardinals.
Good receiving statistics aren’t prerequisite for a successful running back, but they’re nice to have. It’s icing on the cake if a back can catch and create plays in space.
Adrian Peterson does fine, beating out Payton and Brown in receiving yardage.
Peterson wasn’t a quarterback target as much as the others (beating only Brown in number of receptions), but that’s likely more a consequence of team strategy than individual performance. Before picking up Brett Favre this year, the Vikings had issues at the quarterback position—and were more than happy to hand the ball off instead of making unnecessary passes.
The Future
Obviously two seasons can’t put Adrian Peterson onto the NFL’s Mount Rushmore of running backs. But while he didn’t beat out the entire quartet of Brown, Payton, Sanders and Smith, he did hold his own and scored favorably in all three categories.
Peterson has started this season riding the momentum of his wildly successful first two campaigns. He shredded the Cleveland Browns for 180 yards last Sunday, and today added 92 more against the Detroit Lions.
Granted, the Browns and Lions are widely recognized as two of the worst teams in the NFL. But if Peterson can keep this up, with 272 rushing yards in two games, the single-season rushing record (2,105 yards, held by Eric Dickerson) will be his.
The biggest threat to Peterson’s eventual historical greatness is, of course, injury. Freak injuries can happen to anyone at anytime, and they’ve hit Peterson before—causing him to miss seven games in his junior (and final) season at Oklahoma.
If the Vikings continue to rely heavily on Peterson, and especially if Brett Favre doesn’t hold up for the entire season, then he also faces the danger of wearing out too quickly. His 363 carries last year are just shy of the dreaded “Curse of 370″, which reflects a tendency for backs with more than 370 carries in a season to perform poorly the following year.
It’s consistency, performing at a high level, that sets the all-time greats apart from the rest. The only way for Peterson to cement his place among these four greats is, obviously, to produce on the field year after year.
And wow. He’s off to a good start.
Adrian Peterson is the greatest and most exciting running back since Barry Sanders.
Everything Peterson was able to accomplish in his first two seasons is truly remarkable because he was the Vikings primary offensive weapon at the time. The opposing teams focused the majority of their defensive efforts on stopping him and he still burned them (similar to what Barry Sanders achieved with the Lions). With the addition of Brett Favre to the Vikings, I think this will be a break out year for Peterson.
His fearless and angry running style is exciting to watch. Nobody finishes a run the way he does. He looks for someone to hit at the end of a run instead of shying away from the contact.
My only concern is that his career will be shortened because of this. However, I wish him a long and successful career because he is sure fun to watch.