Breaking Down Adrian Peterson's Chances of Setting New Rushing Records

It's a good thing Adrian Peterson's play has earned him the right to make bold statements, because the Minnesota Vikings running back is 30 years old and coming off a season in which he played just one game. 

Guys in shoes like those aren't supposed to make audacious forecasts regarding their football futures. After all, 30th birthdays are usually death knells for running backs, especially those with major injuries and off-field issues on their resumes. 

But that didn't stop Peterson last weekend from claiming that he can not only continue to play until he's 38 years old, but that he can remain the best running back in the league at that point. 

"I'm blessed with tremendous talent and recovery and everything, so I feel like I'll be able to play as long as I want," Peterson said, per Chris Tomasson of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "...I want to play seven more (years). Eight. I really feel that I can be 38 out there and still be the best running back in the NFL."

If that's how things wind up going down, it'll be safe to assume that Peterson will break Emmitt Smith's all-time career rushing yardage record of 18,355. 

"I don't think it's impossible," Peterson said regarding his quest to reach that mark. "A lot of things are still to come....I look at things that anything is possible. He played 15 years. I'm going into Year 9, but I've only got eight on the body. That's a long-term goal (to break the record)."

The courageous claims didn't stop there. Peterson also said he felt he could reach the 2,000-yard mark this season, noting that he'll chase Eric Dickerson's single-season record of 2,105. And his wife, Ashley, thinks he can "definitely" run for 2,200 yards. 

Talk is cheap, though, so let's assess Peterson's chances of actually accomplishing these feats. 

Can he be the best running back in the league at the age of 38?

Peterson has proven to be a freak of nature (the man ran for 2,097 yards less than a year after blowing out his knee), and there are exceptions to every rule. But all we can do right now is go off of precedent. Here's what we know: 

Never in NFL history has a running back started a game at the age of 38. In fact, no back in the Super Bowl era has started beyond the age of 36. Marcus Allen made his last career start three months prior to his 37th birthday. Allen did, however, rush for 505 yards as a 37-year-old backup with the Chiefs in 1997. He and the New Orleans Saints' Fred McAfee are the only backs in modern NFL history to gain any yards rushing beyond the age of 36. 

So precedent suggests that not only will Peterson have completely lost his effectiveness by the age of 38, but he should be long done with the game of football. 

Back	Age	Year	Starts	Yards
1. Marcus Allen	36	1996	15	830
2. John Riggins	36	1985	11	677
3. Marcus Allen	35	1995	15	890
4. John Riggins	35	1984	14	1,239
5. Emmitt Smith	35	2004	15	937
6. Marcus Allen	34	1994	13	709
7. John Riggins	34	1983	15	1,347
8. Tony Dorsett	34	1988	13	703

If a regular starter is defined as a running back who starts more than half of his team's games, we're looking at only four men who have ever lasted beyond the age of 33. How did they stack up to Peterson at the same age? 

Back	Starts	Carries	Yards
Emmitt Smith	138	2,914	12,566
Adrian Peterson	97	2,054	10,190
Tony Dorsett	89	1,834	8,336
Marcus Allen	98	1,781	7,275
John Riggins	92	1,406	5,669

Peterson rightly claimed that a lost season works to his advantage in terms of wear and tear, but even without playing much at all in 2014 he has started just about the same number of games Allen and John Riggins had, and he has many more carries than both did at the same point. 

Only 14 backs in NFL history have carried the ball more before the age of 30 than Peterson has. He could be an outlier like the three backs we compare him to above, but he'd have to outlast all three of those grinders in order to deliver on his goals. 

During the Super Bowl era, 32 since-retired backs have hit the 2,000-carry mark, which Peterson just cleared. But only eight of those backs lasted long enough to experience their 3,000th carry, and only Smith ever reached 4,000. 

Yes, Smith lasted nine whole seasons after hitting the 2,000-carry plateau, but he was only 26 years old when that happened. Peterson technically hit that mark at the age of 28, but now he's gone an entire year without accumulating any stats. He's essentially three years behind Smith. 

Excluding a virtually nonexistent 2014 season, Peterson has averaged 290 carries per season. If he were to maintain that pace through his age 36 season, he'd be only the second back in NFL history to carry the ball 4,000 times. 

Sure, he might be able to keep playing beyond that, but he'd be the first player ever to do so. Realistically, for Peterson to keep playing beyond the age of 35 or 36, he'll have to have his workload lightened. And that's where a catch-22 exists regarding his quest to break Smith's yardage record. 

Can he break Smith's all-time rushing yardage record?

When he was Peterson's age, Smith had a 2,376-yard edge over the total AP has right now. But rewind to before Peterson's scrapped eighth season, and you really see how close he was to Smith's pace. 

	Smith	Peterson
At 2,000 carries	8,936	9,966
Through 7 seasons	10,160	10,115
At age 30	12,566	10,190

As you can see, Peterson is neck-and-neck with Smith through 2,000 carries and seven seasons. But now an eighth season has elapsed on his career and he has gained only 75 more yards. Sure, he didn't take hits that entire eighth year, but he still aged. That lost season combined with the fact Smith started his career one year earlier means Peterson will have his work cut out for him. 

For further perspective, here's a look at the most rushing yards anyone's ever accumulated before their age 30 season: 

Back	Yards	Carries
1. Barry Sanders	13,778	2,719
2. Emmitt Smith	12,566	2,914
3. Jim Brown	12,312	2,359
4. LaDainian Tomlinson	11,760	2,657
5. Walter Payton	11,625	2,666
6. Edgerrin James	11,607	2,849
7. Eric Dickerson	11,226	2,450
8. Jerome Bettis	10,876	2,686
9. Marshall Faulk	10,395	2,367
10. Curtis Martin	10,361	2,604
11. Adrian Peterson	10,190	2,054
12. Steven Jackson	10,138	2,396

Even if Peterson had gone out in 2014 and put up his career average rushing total of 1,445, rather than that sad one-game total of 75, he'd still rank seventh on that list, behind fellow stars from this era in LaDainian Tomlinson and Edgerrin James. 

And while, again, he didn't sacrifice his body for basically a full season, the reality is that wasn't worth the estimated 1,370-yard loss in the quest to catch Smith. 

His big advantage now is that he has carried the ball significantly less often than everyone else on that list. But does he have enough time to catch up? Again, it'll all be about longevity, and precedent isn't on his side. 

Peterson has averaged 0.7 yards per carry more than Smith did during the first eight years of his career, which helps, but he hasn't been as much of a workhorse. 

Peterson has missed nine games due to injury and has averaged 19.8 carries per game. Smith missed only four games during his first eight seasons and averaged 20.9 carries per game. That's basically an extra 35 carries per season, which draws them within about 50 yards per season of each other despite the gap in yards per attempt. 

On top of all that, Smith missed just 10 games during the final seven seasons of his career, and he still averaged 17.8 attempts per game. So there's not much give. 

If Peterson were to average the 1,445 yards he averaged during his first seven seasons over the next six seasons (a feat almost unimaginable in today's game, especially considering Peterson's pace has been inflated by a 2,097-yard season), he'd break Smith's record by only 505 yards. 

And it's nearly impossible for 30-something-year-old backs to maintain their paces from their 20s. For proof, take a look at the link between age and rushing yardage averages among the top 20 rushers in league history: 

Back	Pre-30	30-32	33-35
Emmitt Smith	1,396	1,207	723
Walter Payton	1,292	1,523	533
Barry Sanders	1,531	1,491	N/A
Curtis Martin	1,295	1,247	N/A
LaDainian Tomlinson	1,470	641	N/A
Jerome Bettis	1,208	806	368
Eric Dickerson	1,403	647	91
Tony Dorsett	1,191	1,081	580
Marshall Faulk	1,155	628	N/A
Edgerrin James	1,290	320	N/A
Marcus Allen	909	423	788
Franco Harris	1,070	793	588
Thurman Thomas	1,216	686	144
Fred Taylor	1,046	968	212
John Riggins	709	934	1,046
Corey Dillon	1,152	1,060	N/A
O.J. Simpson	1,203	537	N/A
Average	1,208	882	507

Only two guys—Riggins and Walter Payton—saw their numbers stay the same or improve in the early part of their 30s. And the few who did last beyond 32 fell off cliffs. Keep in mind we're talking about the top 20 rushers in NFL history. These are the guys who did have longevity.

Here's another way of looking at it: No back in NFL history has rushed for 6,000 yards beyond the age of 30. Smith compiled a record 5,789 rushing yards beyond his 30th birthday, but only he, Riggins and Payton eclipsed the 5,000-yard mark in their thirties. In order to surpass Smith's career mark, Peterson would need 8,166 yards beyond the age of 30. 

Look at some of the guys from the earlier list who were within Smith's range at 30 but never wound up coming close to that record of 18,355. Barry Sanders, who admittedly retired early, had a 1,200-yard lead on the pace but fell 3,000 yards short. Tomlinson only got within 5,000 yards of Smith's record, while James, Jim Brown and Marshall Faulk each walked away with deficits of around 6,000 yards. 

Smith finished his career with approximately 50 percent more rushing yards than those guys did. But when they were Peterson's age, they were on pace to make a run at that mark. That just goes to show how far off Peterson remains. 

Can he rush for 2,000 yards again?

He did it once, so you'd be foolish to conclude that Peterson can't again make a run at Dickerson's 2,105 with another 2,000-yard season. 

Working against him is the fact that no back in NFL history has rushed for 2,000 yards (or 1,900 yards, for that matter) twice.

And every member of the 2,000-yard club accomplished that feat before the age of 30. Dickerson was only 24 when he set the record, Peterson was only 27 when he came close to breaking it, and fellow 2,000-yard rushers Sanders, Jamal Lewis, Terrell Davis, Chris Johnson and O.J. Simpson were an average age of 25 when they reached their respective career highs. 

Thirty of the top 31 single-season rushing outputs in NFL history were recorded by players younger than 30, with Tiki Barber the lone exception. Barber went for 1,860 yards as a 30-year-old in 2005, while Curtis Martin ran for 1,697 as a 31-year-old in 2004. 

Forgetting about age and instead focusing on experience, there's one precedent that does favor Peterson. Sanders was 29 when he ran for 2,053 yards in 1997, but he started his career one year earlier and thus was in his ninth season. Peterson is also entering his ninth year and actually has 330 fewer career carries than Sanders did entering that big '97 campaign. 

So we're telling you there's a chance, but it's faint. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Follow @Brad_Gagnon