Adrian Peterson has had a great career, and if it's up to him it's not done yet. Peterson is working out and hoping to catch on with a team before the start of the season. He's 36 years old, but I'm not inclined to bet against him.
Granted, his days of being a top-10 running back -- which he was for seven of his first eight full seasons -- are over. He's not going to sign with anyone to start; maybe he won't sign at all until there's an injury or two. But he usually seems to wind up with a significant workload.
Other than the year he blew out his knee and the year he was suspended, Peterson has played 12 seasons, and he's had over 150 carries in all of them. That's impressive; durable and mostly effective for a very long time.
But it's been a gradual decline, as you'd expect from a running back of his age. In those first eight seasons he averaged over 4.5 yards per attempt in all but one of them, and scored double-digit touchdowns in all of them. In his last four, he's been under 4.0 twice and at 4.2 and 4.3 the other two, averaging 5.5 touchdowns. Offensive lines perhaps not as good, but the years and mileage take a toll. More of a committee role in most of those seasons as well. One top-20 finish, as a starter with Washington in 2018, but outside the top 30 in his other three seasons.
| ADRIAN PETERSON CAREER | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Att | Run | Avg | No | Rec | TD | FF | Rk |
| 2007 | 238 | 1341 | 5.6 | 19 | 268 | 13 | 257.9 | 5 |
| 2008 | 363 | 1760 | 4.9 | 21 | 125 | 10 | 269.5 | 9 |
| 2009 | 314 | 1383 | 4.4 | 43 | 436 | 18 | 332.9 | 2 |
| 2010 | 283 | 1298 | 4.6 | 36 | 341 | 13 | 277.9 | 5 |
| 2011 | 208 | 970 | 4.7 | 18 | 139 | 13 | 206.9 | 15 |
| 2012 | 348 | 2097 | 6.0 | 40 | 217 | 13 | 351.4 | 1 |
| 2013 | 279 | 1266 | 4.5 | 29 | 171 | 11 | 238.7 | 10 |
| 2015 | 327 | 1485 | 4.5 | 30 | 222 | 11 | 266.7 | 2 |
| 2017 | 156 | 529 | 3.4 | 11 | 70 | 2 | 82.9 | 61 |
| 2018 | 251 | 1042 | 4.2 | 20 | 208 | 8 | 193.0 | 19 |
| 2019 | 211 | 898 | 4.3 | 17 | 142 | 5 | 151.0 | 32 |
| 2020 | 156 | 604 | 3.9 | 12 | 101 | 7 | 124.5 | 40 |
Peterson is another one of those older players who has never made it to a Super Bowl; part of me would like to see him catch on with a team that gets there. But most likely he has a quiet, lesser role with some team before calling it a career.
--Andy Richardson