J. Kapp 11 wrote:You'll kidding, right?
Adrian Peterson has never been close to multi-dimensional. He's been great, great, GREAT at what he does, which is run the football. First-ballot HOF great. But he's never been even average at catching the ball out of the backfield. He simply doesn't have good hands, Jim. He's also a poor blocker, not because of any lack of physical capability, but because he often doesn't know who he's supposed to block. You keep saying that the coaches don't use him in a multi-dimensional way. I agree. There's a reason for that.
And the stats don't lie. Adrian Peterson's per-carry average out of the gun is significantly less than his average out of the I. He's never been a patient runner, which is a must running out of the gun.
It's almost like you take these criticisms personally, Jim. Adrian Peterson is one of the greatest players I've ever seen, and THE best runner I've ever seen. But he's not perfect, and he's not multi-dimensional. Never has been. Why can't that be OK?
He's not a back who's so limited he can only run successfully out of one formation either. Why can't that be okay, especially since it's a demonstrable fact?
This is a simple case of Adrian Peterson's skillset not fitting what the Vikings want to do going forward. It sucks, but it's the truth. I don't know whether Latavius Murray fills the bill, but I understand why they are going this direction.
I understand it too. I have all along, which is why I didn't expect Peterson to be back in 2017.
As for the rest, it's the exaggerations that aggravate me. I don't take them personally, I just get tired of them.
I've never said Peterson's a great blocker or that he has great hands but he's not
incompetent in either area, which is how he's often portrayed. As I said, he's not a wholly one-dimensional player. How has a back who's supposedly useless in the passing game accumulated almost 2000 yards receiving in his career?There's a difference between not being able to do something and not excelling at it. He's caught passes, blocked blitzers, played on third downs, made good runs from the shotgun formation, etc. These are aspects of his game the team has made very little effort to develop over the years. I think he's shown he's adaptable and I also think he's shown he can improve on his shortcomings when he sets his mind to it and is given sufficient opportunity. He'll never have the versatility of Payton or Tomlinson and I've never claimed he does but he's not a one trick pony.
As for the shotgun: blocking and the very nature of the Vikings offense has had a lot to do with him being less successful running from the gun, not that he's ever been asked to run from it much in the first place. Of course, as I wrote above, he
has run from it and he's had some good runs from it too so again, it's not that he can't do it. He's less effective from it. Why that surprises anyone or why it's turned into a hammer with which to bludgeon the guy for the last few seasons is beyond me, since it's a
passing formation. It's hard to imagine that a running back would run better from a running formation than a passing formation.
It's especially hard to imagine that would be true on a team that's had an anemic passing game for most of that running back's career!
The determination to denigrate Peterson because fans want the team to move in another direction annoys me. The latter can happen without the exaggerated disparagement of one of the Vikings all-time great players.
