Adrian Peterson's Fumbles: Sending Brett Favre into Retirement Two Weeks Early

Adrian Peterson owes Brett Favre a huge thank you, but also a huge apology.

The thank you is for taking the heat for this Vikings’ loss. Brett Favre made a potentially game-deciding mistake, a mistake that probably ended his career. Favre’s interception, and how it started his retirement two weeks earlier than it might have otherwise, is 90 percent of the discussion in the afterglow of the Vikings’ awful team choke in yesterday’s NFC Championship game.

The apology he owes Favre is for losing the game with his barrage of fumbles. It has to be assumed that if Adrian doesn’t put those balls on the carpet that the Vikings could have easily gotten at least three more points, enough to win in regulation.

Maybe once the aftershock of the end of Favre’s career blows over everyone can re-focus their ire on Peterson and what has become a career-threatening fumbling issue.

It's not often that a running back that goes for over 100 yards and three touchdowns "loses" the game for his team. But if you subscribe to the theory that those three fumbles cost the Vikings even three points, then he did actually lose the game.

Peterson is an amazing talent. I have watched football for 35 years or so, and other than Eric Dickerson and Barry Sanders, I don’t think there is a running back I would rather watch play. It's hard to have a wholly unique running style, but A.P. does. 

You watch long enough and you think that you have seen every running method there is, but then Peterson comes along, and he is an absolute original.

When A.P. came out of college, the rap was that he ran too upright, that he was going to get hurt easily because he was a “target” running straight-up-and-down.

In reality, he runs upright because he has to. It's his innovative style. Ninety-nine percent of the RBs who have ever played in the NFL do one of two things when a defender presents himself: They either lower their head and shoulder and try to bowl him over, a la Earl Campbell and Jerome Bettis, or they try to fake them out of their A.C.L., a la Reggie Bush and Barry Sanders.

Peterson does neither. He views the oncoming defender as a personal affront to his well-being. He is actually incensed by the fact that this guy wants to try and tackle him.

A.P.’s strategy, at the moment of impact, is hand-to-hand combat. He fights the defender. He doesn’t juke him. He doesn’t run him over. He exchanges blows with him.

It's an amazing thing to watch. It's reminiscent of the classic 1980s video game, Double Dragon. He elbows the defender a couple times, sets him up, and then finishes him with a knee to the gut. He then moves on to the next guy and begins again.

I have never seen anything like it, and I find it riveting. He is the angriest runner since Jim Brown. 

There is a grand weakness of this dogged style of running with dozens of close range battles every Sunday—he has a football in his hand.

No boxer can fight with a loaf of bread in one glove and A.P. cannot continue to play in the NFL until he values the ball more than subduing oncoming safeties.

Peterson is an extraordinary talent. I suspect he is the kind of guy that I will tell my grandchildren about, but only if he figures out a way to stay on the field.

Yes, A.P. owes Favre a big thank you for deflecting the onslaught of criticism he is due.  But Favre is going to be out of the picture soon and the spotlight will get directed elsewhere. For the sake of football fans, I hope Peterson is ready for it.