Peterson Looking To Run "All Day" Against Cowboys

Peterson Looking To Run "All Day" Against Cowboys

IRVING, Texas - Growing up in Palestine, Texas, Adrian Peterson rocked his Deion Sanders sneakers with his Michael Irvin jersey. His senior year of high school, the football star hung out in the locker room at Texas Stadium, listening to safety Roy Williams reminisce about his days as a Sooner.

Now, Adrian "All-Day" Peterson returns to Dallas again this Sunday, donning a Minnesota Vikings jersey.

"He has the vision of a Marshall Faulk, the power of a Terrell Davis and the speed of an Eric Dickerson," former Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders said on NFL Network after the rookie's 224-yard rushing game against the Chicago Bears, last Sunday. "Let's pray he has the endurance of an Emmitt Smith."

Peterson agrees with Sanders' comparisons to Eric Dickerson and Terrell Davis, but the NFL's current rushing leader also likens himself to current elite backs such as LaDainian Tomlinson and Larry Johnson.

"As far as my playing style I'd say [I'm most like] LaDainian Tomlinson," Peterson said on a conference call Wednesday, "as far as his cutting ability and his vision. I feel like I have that same vision to make those cuts on the dime and such. I would say Larry Johnson, how he runs the ball, his aggressiveness and getting inside."

Those are big names to be throwing out as a rookie. But Peterson so far is living up to the hype, running for 607 yards in five games, including four 100-yard rushing performances. In Week 4 against the Green Bay Packers, "AD" had 12 carries for 112 yards, which looked like child's play the next week when he doubled his yardage on just eight more carries to not only set the Vikings's single-game rushing record but also earn NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors - something no Vikings rookie had won since Randy Moss put a whuppin' on the Cowboys on Thanksgiving in 1998.

Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher evidently felt the heat of Peterson's after-burners a few times during the game and let the running back know it after watching him go for touchdowns of 67, 73 and 35 yards.

"Urlacher came up to me after the game," Peterson said, "and said, 'Hey rookie, you got a pretty good forward lean on you.'"

Vikings head coach Brad Childress agrees with Urlacher, but is reluctant to compare the 22-year-old to anyone the league has seen before, knowing he's only five games into his NFL career and that the Vikings still are regulating his carries, trying to share the best they can with Chester Taylor.

"It's his own [style]," Childress said. "He's a big guy with obviously top-end speed, which you've seen guys that have been battering rams, and he's got enough niftiness where he can get on the edge with his speed. I think he's really his own style."

A style some NFL teams may be kicking themselves for not seeing - or believing. Peterson said his collarbone injury during his senior year at Oklahoma was responsible for falling to the seventh spot in the first round of the NFL's April draft. There was some thought he might need surgery to correct his shoulder problem. That might have caused the first six teams to pass on him.

But Peterson refuses to let the past affect his future, and is setting a high rookie bar for himself. Obviously, Offensive Rookie of the Year is not out of the question, but Peterson is thinking more like Pro Bowl or All-Pro high.

"Anything is possible if I keep working hard and if the offensive line keeps working hard," he said.

And if there ever was a past that could have a negative affect, it's Peterson's. The day before the NFL combine in February, his 19-year-old half-brother was shot and killed in Houston.

Undaunted, Peterson ran a 4.40 second 40-yard dash the next day in Indianapolis.

That's not the lone tragedy in his life, either. At the tender age of 7, Peterson watched a drunk driver run down his older brother. Then at 13, his father, Nelson Peterson, was sent to prison for laundering drug money.

Yet Peterson went on to become a top recruit out of high school, and then a star at Oklahoma, where his father, eventually released from prison, was able to see him play his final season.

And come Sunday at Texas Stadium, there will be a caravan of sorts heading west out of East Texas, at least 50 strong to watch this small-town guy run under the big city lights.

Future NFL Star
Darren McFadden, RB, Arkansas
Darren McFadden is without question the most talented individual in college football today. Let's put it this way: If he elects to leave school early for the 2008 NFL draft, then McFadden could become the first running back selected No. 1 overall since Ki-Jana Carter in 1995. As we all know, the trophy typically goes to the biggest offensive star on the nation's best team. But with all the chaos atop the rankings and with LSU and USC void of a Heisman-like standout, Darren McFadden could become the exception to the rule -- a la Barry Sanders.