Adrian Peterson Resurrects the Vikings

Yesterday, one of the NFL's greatest performances took place and it had nothing to do with Brady, Manning or Favre.

Amidst the hype of the Colts-Pats matchup, who knew that a game in the land of the lakes would have me fixated on the tube—the Vikings-Chargers game was one for the history books as Adrian "Purple Jesus" gave us a fable-worthy performance.

Peterson ran for 296 yards on just 30 carries and capped it off with three touchdowns—enough to make my jaw drop and bewilder my mind for a good while. While "Purple Jesus" was running, jumping, catching and running some more, making the Chargers' D look almost like Swiss cheese, he also had a fumble and a lost ball which made his resilience more noteworthy. (To be fair, the Chargers' D didn't play too poorly.)

Peterson fumbled the ball after running for about 12 hard-earned yards and it almost seemed like he was trying too hard. When the Vikes got the ball back, he ran for a 45-yard touchdown, showing the football nation that he's strong both physically and mentally.

Oh yeah, he also broke for a 64-yard run which ended up tying the game in the second quarter.

And this kid is a rookie!

He has left me awe-struck and confused week in and week out and will continue to do so if he plays like this often—which seems very probable.

Even though this season is eight games deep, Peterson has turned in one outstanding performance after another. He has run for 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-, and 60-yard touchdowns, all the while sharing the time with Chester Taylor, who has gotten the majority of the carries until yesterday.

Vikings coach Brad Childress said during the telecast of the game that one of Peterson's flaws is that he runs too hard and strong and needs to just take it down a notch.

Well coach, I would love tell you that you are right, but when the "Purple Jesus" puts up almost 300 rush yards with three TDs and ultimately gets your team the victory you should probably go easy on the kid and let him do his thing.

Peterson is one of those players who comes around every so often and changes the way the game is played. Well, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here since he's only played eight games in the league, but this rookie deserves all the praise that he will get this week.

When he retires he will be enshrined as a mere myth, a fable, a legend. People will sit around discussing whether Peterson was merely a man or a god.

Let the Purple Jesus Era Begin.