What To Do About Adrian Peterson

by Brandon on Nov 7, 2007 1:41 AM CST in News Comment 1 comment

Purple Jesus has two 200 yard rushing games, including the best single game (296) yardage mark in the NFL history, so far this season. His 3rd best game of the season? 112 yards against the Packers in week 4. Since that game, all the Packers opponents have averaged under 4 yards/carry against the solid Packer run defense, but I expect that streak to end on Sunday. What the hell can the Packers do to slow him down? Here's Ned Macey's take on Peterson and his suggestion:

The emergence of Peterson is truly an amazing story. The Vikings have no threat of a passing game, so defenses can concentrate all their force on defending Peterson. The offensive line has talent but is inconsistent and particularly weak on the right side. Taylor, a solid NFL running back, is not having nearly the success Peterson has had despite running behind the same line.

Peterson is embarrassing the league at this point with a ridiculous 6.6 yards per carry. His only blemish is three fumbles. Most impressively, Peterson, as a running back, has brought a big-play capability to a team otherwise lacking. In half a season, he already has six plays of 40 or more yards and 12 over 20 yards. Taylor had only two plays over 40 yards and six over 20 yards in 15 games last season. The great Tomlinson only had eight plays over 40 yards and 16 over 20 in his MVP season a year ago. Peterson may challenge Eric Dickerson's rookie record of 1,808 rushing yards, and he will challenge it with far fewer carries.

The big-play threat makes the Vikings offense competent. Teams will begin to put nine men in the box to stop the run and dare the Vikings to win in the passing game. It's far from certain that the Vikings are able to perform such a feat. Brooks Bollinger appears to be the default quarterback after injury and ineffectiveness shelved Tarvaris Jackson and Kelly Holcomb.

Since S Atari Bigby has turned into a pass interference machine over the last two weeks, it might be time to turn that over-aggression loose closer to the line of scrimmage and run blitz him all game long. Whatever the strategy was last time to stop Peterson obviously didn't work. The only thing that stopped him last time against the Packers was Brad Childress, who only had him run the ball twice in the 2nd half.

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