Forging a New Identity for the Minnesota Vikings Sans Adrian Peterson
Adrian Peterson has been the unassailable face of the Minnesota Vikings during the vast majority of his eight-year NFL career. For a franchise recently lacking a consistent presence at quarterback and head coach, an otherworldly and once-in-a-generation talent like Peterson has rightfully served as the club's leading representative—a lone football star in the land of 10,000 lakes.
The Vikings now face an identity crisis of sorts sans Peterson, who the team placed on the NFL's exempt/commissioner's list late Tuesday while he sorts through the legal process of his child abuse case in Texas.
The football reality of the situation is the Vikings won't have Peterson available in the short term and very likely the long term either. The end of an era may be rapidly approaching.
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To be clear, this is not an examination of Peterson's child abuse case. There will be no discussion of corporal punishment, indictments or the specifics of the accusations.
But while Peterson's football career is put on hold, the Vikings have a football game Sunday against the New Orleans Saints and 13 more over the course of the 2014 season. Life in the NFL goes on.
Where do the Vikings turn?
With Peterson in Week 1, Minnesota rolled the St. Louis Rams on the road by four touchdowns. Minus him last Sunday, the Vikings scored just seven points and lost by 23 at home to the New England Patriots. Peterson certainly wasn't solely responsible for the drastic swing of fortunes, but the result of taking away a team's best player was never difficult to project.
Per Dave Campbell of The Associated Press (via the Star Tribune), offensive coordinator Norv Turner understands his offense has its hands full replacing Peterson's stellar production and big-play capabilities.
"I don't think you can say, 'Hey, in this game we're going to get three or four runs over 15 yards,' like you would with Adrian," Turner said. "So you just have to adjust your plan."
The Vikings can't know when or if Peterson will return. The duration of the legal process could mean he misses the rest of the 2014 season. In March of 2015, Peterson will turn 30 years old. He will also be scheduled to earn a base salary of $12.75 million, with a cap hit of over $15 million. The Vikings can part ways and save well over $12 million for a cap fee of just $2.4 million next year.
The possibility exists that Peterson never plays for the Vikings again.
Teams don't just replace an identity overnight. The process will take time. But the Vikings have three important people already inside the franchise who can help bridge the gap between the Peterson era in Minnesota and the next phase of Vikings football: head coach Mike Zimmer, receiver Cordarrelle Patterson and quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.
Zimmer, a first-year head coach, has the kind of tough, football-laden makeup to help a team transform its personality.
His extensive background on defense—combined with the pieces the Vikings already possess on that side of the ball—gives Minnesota the opportunity to eventually become one of the league's more feared defensive units. It is reasonable to expect Zimmer to get the best out of the likes of Harrison Smith, Anthony Barr, Everson Griffen, Xavier Rhodes and Sharrif Floyd, among others.
| S Harrison Smith | Draft (1st, 2012) | 25 | 2016 |
| LB Anthony Barr | Draft (1st, 2014) | 22 | 2019 |
| DT Sharrif Floyd | Draft (1st, 2013) | 23 | 2017 |
| DE Everson Griffen | Draft (4th, 2010) | 26 | 2019 |
| CB Xavier Rhodes | Draft (1st, 2013) | 24 | 2017 |
| NT Linval Joseph | FA (2014) | 25 | 2019 |
| CB Captain Munnerlyn | FA (2014) | 26 | 2017 |
Through two games, the Vikings have allowed just two offensive touchdowns, and one came after an interception set up the Patriots at the 1-yard line. Last season, the Vikings gave up 51 touchdowns. Progression is already obvious. More will come.
During his final three years as the Cincinnati Bengals' defensive coordinator, Zimmer's defenses ranked in the top 10 of both points and yards allowed.
Patterson has the potential star power to replace Peterson's larger-than-life persona on offense.
The NFL game has a vast collection of great open-field runners. Peterson is among them. But Patterson, a second-year receiver, reigns on high as the most exciting, dynamic and dangerous player in the game with the football in his hands.
While still raw as a receiver—his first 18 games have produced just 52 catches—Patterson does have 260 yards and four scores on just 15 career rushing attempts. He also returned two kickoffs for touchdowns as a rookie in 2013, including an NFL-record 109-yarder against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football last October.
In Week 1, Patterson caught three passes for 26 yards and rushed three times for 102 yards and a touchdown. His 67-yard score featured a rare and electrifying combination of speed, vision, power and agility. While the Vikings did not give Patterson a carry last Sunday, he was successfully used as a decoy on Minnesota's first drive, which ended in a touchdown.
His game will need to continue to evolve for Patterson to jump into Peterson's stratosphere as an overall football player. For now—and unlike Peterson—Patterson's impact on a game from week-to-week can be marginalized. But all the physical skills are there, and early-development signs in 2014 suggest he's making the necessary progress.
Yet for all Zimmer and Patterson can do to forge the Vikings' new identity, rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater holds all the cards for Minnesota's future.
There is no established timeline for Bridgewater becoming the Vikings' starting quarterback. For now, he is sitting and learning the position at the professional level behind veteran Matt Cassel. Minnesota has not shown any need to expedite the process; instead, the team has stuck to its guns about bringing Bridgewater along at the right pace.
It would still be reasonable to think Bridgewater starts a game at some point in 2014.
Cassel can have efficient, manageable games like in St. Louis, where he finished Week 1 with the NFL's fourth-highest passer rating. But he's also perfectly capable of performances like last Sunday, when he tossed four interceptions and looked completely unqualified to lead an NFL offense.
His passer rating against the Patriots finished at just 39.1, and he's now ranked 34th out of 35 qualifying quarterbacks in the statistic after two weeks (65.7).
Once Cassel puts together a few consecutive stinkers, the calls for Bridgewater will become undeniable.
On some level, it may be unfair to throw Bridgewater to the wolves, especially without the comforts that would have been afforded with Peterson in the backfield. A rookie quarterback needs a strong supporting cast. Patterson, Greg Jennings and Kyle Rudolph represent strong receiving options, but Peterson and the respect he demands on the field were the biggest parts of the puzzle.
While nice role players, Matt Asiata and Jerick McKinnon cannot be expected to replace everything the NFL's most physically dominant running back brought to the table.
Still, if Bridgewater is the real deal, the identifying member of the Vikings franchise will shift from Peterson to a young, promising quarterback in the blink of an eye.
Unfortunately for the Vikings, these new forms of identity need time to develop.
Zimmer won't turn around the defense overnight. Patterson isn't yet polished enough to carry an offense. Bridgewater is still wearing a ball cap and holding a clipboard.
In the meantime, the Vikings will have to fall back on the leadership of those like Zimmer, Turner and Cassel while the remaining pieces of the puzzle attempt to jell in a chaotic environment. The road may be a bumpy one. Things rarely go smoothly for teams in transition.
But at least the Vikings have the foundations of a future, even if Peterson never plays another snap in Minnesota purple.
Difficult situations often require evolution for survival. It will take time and patience, but the Vikings have the tools necessary to move past Peterson's situation and forge a new future.
Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report.
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