I know if I had AD's talent and physique I'd be running the football every chance I got. That guy would probably play for peanuts.....he just loves to run for paydirt, as long as he gets to clobber someone along the way.

I'm really in shock that this happened. I know it's a mathematical risk every player takes and it's not the first time it's happened to a great running back. That Redskin DB must feel horrible. I can't even imagine how Adrian feels tonight.

I'm seeing an incredibly large cloud here and am having trouble seeing the silver lining -- other than that it is likely to turn the Vikes into a passing team when they make their next run at a Title, which is generally a good thing given the modern game. When Adrian comes back, he almost surely won't be the same player. That means that while he might be able to play NFL football, I find it hard to believe he'll be worth what the Vikes are paying him.

Really, this is just a sickening thing, and as a guy who can't stand the Redskins, I'm doubly pained to think that it happened against them.

(P.S. -- I edited an earlier version of this post in which I defended the Vikes decision to play Adrian. The question is whether Adrian was playing at full speed, if he was, there was no problem in my view with letting him play, even in a meaningless game. If he wasn't playing at full speed, then I'd agree with those who say it was crazy to play him. I just don't know the answer to that question.)

Wow. What a horrible, sickening bit of news this is.

Get well, Adrian, and don't rush yourself back.

Kind of a #### Christmas for us Vikings fans. When he went down and immediately started punching/kicking the ground in pain I knew it was bad. Had that pain in my gut, you know the pain guys, kinda like getting kicked in the nuts. I'm just glad that we have Toby so we can have a decent running attack while AD recovers. I've been one of those who said we should trade Toby now that he's shown he's a capable RB, but I can no longer support that. We gotta keep him.

Peterson is a freak of nature, if anyone can come back from an injury like this and beat the odds, it's him.

Terrible, terrible news. But I surely dont blame him or the Vikings for having him play. Meaningless game or not, the NFL is a 9 billion dollar a year business because guys like AD play, even in games that might not be box office smashes. If every team sat their stars once games didnt mean much, the NFL would be tough to watch fairly early in the season. Heck, AD, Allen, Williams, and Winfield would have been benched from week 10 and on if that was the case, just not realistic.

While I doubt he'll ever be the AD we all know againg, it could happen, he is a determined guy and his body is unreal. Wish him luck and hoping for the best.

I was wondering when someone was going to bring this up. I thought that he looked like he wasn't himself yesterday as he seemed a little apprehensive in his "attack mode" style of running. there were a few plays where he seemed to lay off or shy away from contact and it made me think that he wasn't 100%. I understand the "fans want him to play/he wants to play" but you don't risk your only surefire franchise player in a meaningless game(Gerhart is a fine replacement). Now the organization has a brutal and maybe cold callous decision to make if he can't make it back to where he was. Another "bad luck" event in the long list of organizational mistakes. As soon as I saw the replay, I said to myself that it was a career ender. I hope I'm wrong but I know better. He will never be the same and now we have committed sooo much money to him and we have soo many holes to fill. The only way to salvage this is to probably renegotiate his contract at the beginning of next year before the draft. If we wait longer it will handcuff the organization once again and hamper personnel moves and decisions.
I know, I'm heartless in thinking this way, but in reality, if we want this team to get better it's the only way. I love AD and his style of running but there is a real good chance we may not see that happen for 2 years, if ever again and by that time age will be playing a factor. Playing him 2 weeks after a high ankle sprain was a ridiculous mistake by the coaching staff and I don't think it is all that tough of a call to make. Not that I like Chilly, but he always referenced making sure a player was able to "protect himself" and this was a fine example of that.
Gentleman, this organization has just hit rock bottom. Other than Jared Allen, there is no one I would pay to see play. It's really time to clean house from the top down. You build a team on a foundation and our foundation was AD. Now that foundation has been compromised by the neglect of the contractor(coach), if you will. AD must be taken out of the equation at this point and we have to find a new foundation.
In some regards, since the rest of the team sucks so bad, maybe this was a just as good a time as any for this to happen but they must cancel/renegotiate his contract.
I say fire Speilman, the whole coaching staff and keep the top 10 players and trade away anything else with value for picks and see what you can find for cheap in FA and rebuild from the ground up through the draft. Hire a GM and let him find a coach. The organization, of this organization, is dysfunctional at best. There seems to be no accountability from top to bottom and as I read somewhere before that each situation is handled in it's own light. Just a terrible way to do things.
Every team cycles from highs to lows. We have been "lucky" enough to have a relatively successful franchise(in terms of wins) for quite sometime. Even after the Herschel trade we remained competitive. A trade that would have crippled most organizations.

I've been a fan for about 40 years now and I would trade a couple of years of sucky losing years(like the Lions) if we could build a team through the draft and win a championship. I'm just tired of band-aid fixes and all I can see with the AD situation is a another "see what happens" string of events which we will probably come out on the bottom.
If Payton Manning is still on the roster of the colts in March, Pollian will have to pay him 28 million to maybe not play. I highly doubt that will happen.
It's time to turn the page on this DISorganization and find a better way.

Daryn

P.S. Merry Christmas

Lots of doomsayers in here - this sucks, for sure, but the advances in surgery and treatment of this injury have been outstanding in the past few years. It is incredible what they can accomplish medically with this injury.

AD has EVERY chance to rehab back to where he was.

Do not count this man out.

Absolutely terrible news!! AP in my opinion was the best running back in the league, As a Lions fan I was always envious of the guy and if there was one player in the NFL that I wish was a Lion it would be AP. I hope he recovers to his former self and we see him next year!!

I'd like to calm everyone down with my own personal experience. From 2002-2010 I was a professional big mountain skier in Big Sky Montana. (one of the guys you see jumping of cliffs, skiing fast, etc) Midway trough my 2003-2004 season I went to0 big and snapped my ACL like a twig. Due to financial issues, I had to wait until June to have my surgery. Which is a very long time. I was back on my feet two weeks after going under the knife. Back on my mountain bike two weeks after that and back on skis that same November. I was about 90% and had to wear a knee brace but again, I waited 5 months to have the surgery. By the end of the season, my surgically repaired knee was actually stronger then my other knee. And most importantly, I'd like to mention I had my surgery by a very good doctor, but not a doctor in the same league as the guy AD will go see. And while I am a fairly strong person, AD is a machine. He's gonna be fine. And I bet he will come back and put up a record season. Robert Smith had both his knees replaced if I'm not mistaken?? He was better after his knee surgeries.

They have to play 2012 like AD will not be a factor. If he makes it back late 2012 or 2013, that will be gravy. But he is not the cornerstone of the franchise's future anymore. Who knows, it may be a blessing-in-disguise because run-first teams are far less likely than pass-happy teams to win Super Bowls these days. Sorry for stating so realistic an opinion on Christmas.

Peterson's ankle sprain had nothing to do with this injury, zero. It's not like had he been 100% he would have somehow been able to lessen or avoid the injury. It was a brutal hit while his foot was planted, could have happened on his very first carry of his career or not ever. It's just a tough break. A really really tough break. He wanted to play, was upset about his workload last week, and so they fed him the ball like they should have. Hindsight is great but this is football and injuries are a part of the game.

Yesterday, I was at my sister's house to celebrate Christmas. I was recording the game on the DVR and begged my brother NOT to tell me what happened. Because he is absolutely incapable of keeping his mouth shut, he told me anyway ... AND told me that both AP and Ponder got hurt. Said, "Peterson hurt his knee." The problem with my brother is that even though he has this penchant for telling you what you don't want him to (like the outcome of movies), he rarely gets it right. In this case, he was simply getting updates on his phone. So I thought, "Hurt his knee ... probably a sprain or something, like he had his rookie year."

Imagine my horror when I finally saw that play around 10 p.m. last night ... and then the replay, which almost made me throw up.

I pray for as full a recovery as AP can make. It's not going to be easy, especially if the MCL is torn, too. I guess if there's hope of anything, it's people like the Vikings' own Terry Allen, who rushed for 1,000+ yards despite TWO ACL tears, and Willis McGahee, who's knee was absolutely mutilated in that bowl game but still has managed a good NFL career. If anybody can recover from this, AP can.

This is very sad news indeed. I think most of us knew as soon as we saw the hit that Peterson wasn't going to be the same afterwords.

I'm certainly not going to blame the coaches for this as it could have happened at any time ... but if I was calling the shots Peterson would not have been in.

I realize that as soon as the playoffs are out of the picture you don't just start sitting players ... but when one of your stars gets hurt towards the end of a 2 win (at the time) season that's a valid excuse to sit him and play the "being careful" card. That's an approach that I don't think would have been contested by many people. Gerhart has been playing well enough and can use the experience anyway.

So while you don't just take players out ... if they suffer a significant injury like Peterson did, take the excuse and sit him.

It's really not an "in hindsight" sort of call for me either, I actually had that thought going into the Washington game.

But using that train of thought, Allen, AD, and Williams should have been benched since week 10 or so, when we were officially playing for nothing??? The NFL would turn into a total and complete joke, very early in the season if teams followed that formula. Every "star" that plays for the Vikings, Colts, Rams, Jags, and Browns would have been benched over a month ago. And stars for the Panthers, Skins, Dolphins, and Bucs would have been done about a month ago too. IMO, sitting stars in fear of an injury would definately weaken the NFLs appeal and call its integrity into serious question. The superstars for some teams would be able to play a half a season in some cases. A terrible, terrible precident to set. If healthy, players should play.

No one has said anything about sitting anyone because we're out of it. He had a nagging injury before that, and wasn't even going to play the week before. He should have been shut down for the year after he had the high ankle sprain.

He said before the game he was 100%.

I'm a Packers fan that sometimes reads your boards. I don't usually post on rival teams' boards, and just registered for this one. My condolences on AP going down. The guy is a great player, a class act, and a huge part of the Packers-Vikings rivalry. I hope he can come back from it.

lets hope he has surgery right now!!! start the healing/rehab now..dont wait...get it done

I believe they will repair the MCL right away and wont/cant do the ACL until the MCL is healed, or vice versa, either way, its a bad, bad deal.

such a terrible year. i never felt this bad being a vikings fan ever.

I have been a fan of AD since his freshman year at OU and wanted to bring some optimism to the board. He is a freak of nature who is in incredible shape and will receive the best medical care there is. A lot of posts are predicting that he will not be able to regain his old form. While he might lose something, he is one of those rare physical specimens that sometimes defy nature.

A few facts on rbi's who have torn ACL's:

Frank Gore tore his in 2001 and has been an above average back

Willis McGahee has played his entire career after blowing out his MCL, ACL and PCL

Jamal Lewis ran for 2066 yards two years after tearing his ACL

So while there is reason to worry there is also reason to have hope.

Thanks for that......nice post.

This all makes for a "Comeback Player of The Year" type of thing for next year. Go AP.

If the MCL info is true, which I assume it is since no one has corrected it up to this point, my guess is that it's probably a "terrible triad" injury. Which is a torn ACL, MCL and medial meniscus. It's one of, if not the worst knee injury a player can sustain. Hope for the best for him, he's got a long and rough road of rehab ahead of him. As a physiotherapy student, I know how rough this is going to be for him. This is extremely bad news

Nope. Already confirmed that it's not a tear in the Pcl (or w/e the third is called), so its not the same injury that culpepper sustained. Just taking the positives @ this point....

For some reason I felt like I was waiting for this to happen.

I get nervous everytime AD has touched the ball saying in the back of mind "One of these days his ACL could go." And it finally happened.

IDK why I just did.

i agree. he has such a reckless style i'm really not suprised. i'm sick but not suprised.

While it's horrible that the injury happened, this is not the end of his career by any stretch. I have no doubt he'll come back as good as ever. He's young and strong and I believe mentally tough enough to do what it takes to push himself through the rehab.

Just look at recent Viking history. Robert Smith had his best years after two major knee injuries. Many players have come back from serious knee injuries and been productive.

So while tragic he suffered the injury and he will have a long road to recovery, I have full confidence we will see the same old AD once he's ready to go. I just hope we have a better Viking team to put around him when he gets back on the field.

They also have to wait for swelling to go down, not that that would add a lot of recovery time, but anther reason that they have to wait.