Posts tagged AdrianPeterson at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Apparently, you can wager on anything. In light of Cedric Benson's predilection for beer-bonging while operating a watercraft, bodog.com has the odds for which player will be the Bears' starting running back when the 2008 season begins:

Cedric Benson, 7/2
Garrett Wolf, 12/1
Adrian Peterson, 1/1
Matt Forte, 10/13
Other, 10/1

This would be a perfect opportunity for offensive coordinator Ron Turner to make some easy money, which, I'm assuming, he'll need at some point in the very near future. As for Benson, I wonder if these odds have changed much since the arrest. It wasn't like he was exactly tearing things up before he got pepper sprayed this weekend.

And things couldn't have worked out much better for Matt Forte. The Bears draft a left tackle to help bolster one of the offense's many weak units, and then the starting running back goes off and gets a BWI. Now all that's left is to hope that if "Other" doesn't work out at running back, they promptly move him to quarterback. Somehow it seems like the right thing to do.

FanHouse is officially on record as having the Raiders draft Darren McFadden with the fourth-overall pick. And when FanHouse goes on record, it's a done deal. (Want proof? Last year, FanHouse mock draft correctly predicted SIX of the first 32 picks. Convinced? Thought so.)

Today, the Oakland Tribune's Jerry McDonald makes the case for Oakland taking McFadden, echoing many of the thoughts I expressed last week, as well as adding a few nuggets that make a lot of sense, especially given the Al Davis-inspired Raiders' draft strategy:

At the NFL owner's meetings, Lane Kiffin seemed to shoot down the idea of McFadden coming to Oakland, noting a position group already stocked with Justin Fargas, Michael Bush and Dominic Rhodes.

There's a few problems with that line of thinking, assuming it's not a typical draft smoke screen. Fargas' running style makes him an injury risk with every carry. No one really has any idea how good Bush is after a badly broken leg and two years away from real contact. As for Rhodes, he had to take a pay cut to stay with the team so someone apparently told him his chances of landing somewhere else weren't good. So how much can you really expect?

There is much consternation among some (most?) Vikings fans about the current state of the quarterback position. Tarvaris Jackson is the favorite to be the starter in 2008, but I suppose that could change if Gus Frerotte puts up one of his patented Pro-Bowl performances during training camp.

To avoid such a scenario, head coach Brad Childress has given Jackson some things to work on this off-season. From the Star Tribune's Kevin Seifert, who caught up with Childress at last week's NFL owner's meeting: Jackson "needs to take care of the football, ... learn how to throw the ball away, ... and, then, just the decision making."

Not exactly earth-shattering stuff -- although I don't think anybody would disagree -- but the bigger issue is if Jackson will be able to actually do these things next season. Right now, Minnesota doesn't have a fallback plan (Frerotte isn't really going to have a Pro-Bowl training camp).

There's always the draft, but the Vikings don't pick until 17th, and the only consensus franchise quarterback is Matt Ryan, and I'm guessing he doesn't get past the Ravens at No. 8. I suppose you could make the argument that Minnesota should've taken Brady Quinn when they had the chance, but that would've meant passing on Adrian Peterson.

And while I'm the first guy to say running backs are fungible, I'm not willing to suggest that Quinn would've been a better fit for the Vikings than Purple Jesus.

The JB Awards took place last night in Washington, D.C. as part of the NFL Players Gala which recognizes the NFL athletes who do the most in terms of community service. CBS' James Brown, host of "The NFL Today," led the ceremony along with former Steelers coach Bill Cowher. The festivities benefited the Special Olympics D.C. and many of the players honored even spent the day playing with some local kids at Catholic University.

One member of each team was nominated to be honored and from those players nominated, James Brown personally selected twelve to win a JB Award. In addition to those twelve players, four other athletes were given specific honors.

The biggest name being honored was Dan Marino, former Miami Dolphins star QB and 2005 inductee into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Marino received the JB Award for Lifetime Achievement for his dedication to fight against autism.

While Marino was honored for a lifetime achievement award, one of the game's brightest young stars on the rise received a JB Award for Emerging Leadership. Read on to hear my tale of how Purple Jesus almost broke my hand.

The Vikings have had a pretty successful off-season, signing wide receiver Bernard Berrian and safety Madieu Williams. But the recent news that Gus Frerotte will join the team as Tarvaris Jackson's backup has been met with "WTF?" incredulity from a relatively tolerant fanbase.

Generally speaking, the quarterback position is a sore spot for this team, and at the NFL owner's meeting, head coach Brad Childress talked about why Minnesota passed on Brady Quinn last year.

"I think people valued another position obviously more,'' Childress said. "There was some common thinking if he got past Miami there [at No. 9], as you looked at the teams that were after, they weren't really lined up to take a quarterback. That's probably the biggest reason.''

Not all that insightful, but it's not like a coach makes it a habit of spilling his guts to the media about the organization's draft philosophy. Fair enough. One reason the Vikings may have shied away from Quinn last year is because Jackson had just one season in the league. There's plenty of upside for a guy long on athleticism and short on experience. Plus, with other needs (like, say, running back), Minnesota could address the quarterback position at some point in the future.

Now, though, I wonder what the Vikings would do if they had the seventh-overall pick this April. There's a change Matt Ryan could be on the board, and while Jackson showed glimpses of ability in 2007, I think it would be much tougher for the organization to pass on a potential franchise quarterback twice in as many drafts.

I've had my disagreements with the Detroit Free Press' Drew Sharp. To summarize, I think he's either a reactionary sensationalist who indulges mob mentality by siding with the Fire Millen crowd no matter what, or he knows very little about football. I haven't decided yet.

I obviously understand why it's so easy to be pessimistic in Detroit. But Sharp is supposed to be an authority, and some of the stuff he writes is just ridiculous. Such as a recent column on why the Lions made the biggest. mistake. of. the. millenium. by drafting Calvin Johnson. My frustration with this column transcends the typical "you can't judge a draft after only one year" logic, so for ease of read I decided to take the ol' bloggy-time standard of blockquoting and picking apart at will.

Nike commercials have come a long way since the days of Mars Blackmon and Mike discussing the merits of Air Jordans, or Lil' Penny waxing political.

As Nike evolved, so too did its marketing. A few years ago we had the Briscoe High spots, and then, before the 2007 season, Nike introduced this mesmerizing 60 seconds of Shawne Merriman and Steven Jackson. And Nike's newest spot might be their best effort yet.



The visuals are captivating but it's the music that makes this commercial. As someone who's been out of college for a few years, I'll admit to having no idea what's going on in the music scene (save the occasions when iTunes tells me what I should like).

Luckily, the internets are full of people who do -- FanHouse's Tom Mantzouranis, for example -- and Saul Williams is now my new favorite artist. Mantzouranis offers some background:

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was named the NFL's rookie of the year in 2007, and he set the NFL record for rushing yards in a game. But when asked how he would grade his rookie season, Peterson said "average":

"When I look back on my rookie season, I have to give myself a pretty average grade," Peterson said. "I really expect a lot from myself and I fell short of a lot of my goals last year, but I learned a lot and I'm taking a lot away from this past season that I can correct this year. I look forward to having a better, more complete season this year."

A lot of highly celebrated young players tend to coast after their rookie seasons, so the fact that Peterson is vowing to improve has to be music to the ears of Vikings coach Brad Childress. So what would that improvement look like?

Peterson says his goal is to get 2,000 yards next year. I'll be shocked if he actually gets to 2,000, but I like how high he's setting his sights.

This'll certainly test Shaun Alexander's faith: mlive.com's Tom Kowalski mentions that former Lions running back T.J. Duckett is expected to sign with Seattle at some point soon. No one in Seattle seems to know anything about it, but that doesn't mean it won't happen, particularly since it would be a pretty good fit.

The Seahawks running game was so bad last season that head coach Mike Holmgren just decided to quit doing it. If there was ever an offense built for Mike Martz the 2007 Seahawks was it. Assuming Duckett does end up in Seattle, you'd have to imagine one of two things will happen to Alexander: 1) he'll be asked to take a sizable pay cut, or 2) he'll be released.

Based on his "performance" last year, and his absurdly huge contract given his age and position, put me down for 2). I know, I know, he played much of the year with a sore wrist. Fine, but that still doesn't explain why a 5-11, 228-pound NFL running back would go down in the face of a stiff breeze.

Seattle could also stand to patch up the offensive line, but if a successful running game is largely contingent on a competent front five, why did the team re-sign Alexander to an eight-year, $62 million contract, the richest ever for a running back?

Duckett, a former first-round pick, has one start since 2003 and 2,642 rushing yards in his six-year career. Or roughly 1,300 more than Adrian Peterson had as a rookie last season. If nothing else, Duckett is well rested. He's not a game-changer, but he does run hard and should come relatively cheap. Cheaper than Alexander, anyway.

Notes on a trip to the NFL Scouting Combine.

* Update Appended

There's a sense here in Indianapolis that LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey's absence is a problem for some NFL teams.

Dorsey, seen as a likely Top 5 pick, is missing the Combine because his grandmother died recently. And although this may sound callous, some NFL coaches don't think that's a good enough reason. After all, Adrian Peterson put on a show at last year's Combine just hours after learning that his brother had been shot and killed.

Dorsey will work out at the LSU pro day on March 26, and scouts have plenty of game tape of him to watch, so the Combine might not seem all that important for him. But Dorsey suffered through a knee injury for much of the 2007 season, and NFL teams want to get a look at that knee. And coaches -- some of whom won't make it to LSU's pro day -- want to meet Dorsey in person and ask him to tell a joke.

Will missing the Combine cause Dorsey's stock to fall? Probably not on most teams' boards. But if missing the Combine causes Dorsey to fall just a few spots, it will cost him millions of dollars.

Update: Dorsey had a change of heart and showed up Saturday afternoon.

Notes on a trip to the NFL Scouting Combine.

A year after he met his star running back, Adrian Peterson, at the 2007 Scouting Combine, Vikings head coach Brad Childress reminisced today about that meeting.

"What's that movie where they say 'You had me at hello'? That's what it was for me, he had me at the handshake on," Childress said, raving about how much he loved Peterson when the two of them met in one-on-one interviews at last year's Combine, and then how much more he loved Peterson when Peterson turned in a great 40-yard dash time.

The line Childress used, of course, was a reference to Jerry Maguire, in the famous scene when Tom Cruise appeared at Renee Zellweger's door. I believe this would be the first time an NFL head coach has ever compared himself to a lovestruck Renee Zellweger.

And Childress wasn't done there. Asked about his initial impressions on this year's crop of draft prospects, Childress had a curious choice of words when he talked about the weigh-in that all prospects have, wearing nothing but shorts.

"I got to see them in their underwear at the fashion show this morning," Childress said.

The Browns and running back Jamal Lewis are still trying to come to an agreement on a new contract. The former Ravens first-round pick signed a one-year deal with Cleveland last off-season and had a surprisingly efficient year.

Now the Browns would like him back -- and it sounds like Jam-Jam would like to come back -- but, as always, it's about the money. And Lewis has every right to get all that he can; he'll turn 29 just before the 2008 season starts and he'll be lucky to squeeze out three or four more productive seasons (particularly since everybody thought he was washed up after 2006).

Even if Lewis gets away, the Browns have options. Interestingly, though, the Canton Repository's Steve Doerschuk writes that signing Lewis last off-season was the main reason Browns general manager Phil Savage didn't draft Adrian Peterson with the third-overall pick.

If that's true, bringing Lewis to Cleveland was one of the most important moves of the 2007 off-season. The Browns ended up taking left tackle Joe Thomas, who just wrapped up an excellent rookie season. Peterson is a great player, but without an offensive line to run behind, it wouldn't have much mattered.

And while the Browns had a need at running back, the bigger issues was the offensive as a whole. That problem was solved by giving Rob Chudzinski the play-calling duties, benching Charlie Frye, and solidifying the offensive line. Running backs are important, obviously, but not worth a third-overall pick when the team had plenty of other needs.

Purple Jesus may be coming off a Pro Bowl MVP performance, and have his sights set on 2,000 rushing yards in 2008, but head coach Brad Childress thinks there are some areas where Adrian Peterson can improve his game.

Two areas in which Childress wants to see Peterson progress are in his pass protection and in making reads while running the ball. Peterson, who missed two games because of a knee injury, frequently was replaced by Chester Taylor on passing downs because of concerns about his ability to pick up would-be rushers.

It seems kinda crazy to think that Peterson can get better at making reads as the play develops, but as the StarTribune.com's Judd Zulgad writes, this became an issue late in 2007 when teams finally figured out how to contain him. Peterson didn't have a 100-yard rushing game the last month of the season and with defenses putting eight and nine players in the box, it'll become an important part of his game going forward.

Zulgad also notes that as Peterson's pass-blocking improves, he and Chester Taylor could find themselves on the field at the same time. Not only would this create issues for the defense, it would make quarterback Tarvaris Jackson's job a helluva lot easier. And that is a good thing.

As FanHouse's Michael David Smith reported, Adrian Peterson won the Pro Bowl MVP, making pro sports most boring all-star game into something interesting. But it also is a good sign for 2008 that Peterson's late-season swoon was just a minor aberration.

Running backs aren't supposed to have big games in the Pro Bowl--it's all about passes and avoiding as much contact as possible. But Peterson became the first rookie to win Pro Bowl MVP honors since Marshall Faulk did it in 1995.

Peterson didn't show the same explosiveness and big-play ability during the final four games of the season, as he was held to 144 yards over the four games--less than half of the 296 he put up against the Chargers earlier in the season when he set the NFL's single-game rushing record. Peterson said that his knee was fine, but after hurrying back from an injury that forced him to miss two games, it's hard not to think that the tweaked knee and the brace he had to wear on it didn't have something to do with his poor numbers.

MDS wrote that he thinks that Peterson's goal of a 2,000 yard season is a little outlandish. I'm not so sure, although it probably won't happen in 2008. If the Vikings can get halfway competent quarterback play (combined with improved wide receivers), Peterson will face a lot less eight and even nine-man fronts. In 2007, teams simply forgot about the Vikings passing attack, figuring that they were much better off leaving the ball in Tarvaris Jackson's hands than letting Peterson beat them. Even with that, Peterson still averaged 5.6 yards per carry. If/when Chester Taylor leaves and Peterson gets 330-340 carries, 2,000 yards could be within reach.

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson put on a show for the last time of his rookie season today in Hawaii, running 16 times for 129 yards and two touchdowns in the Pro Bowl, leading the NFC to victory and receiving the game's most outstanding player award.

More importantly, Peterson showed once again that he's a bright, articulate and classy young man as well as a terrific football player. After the game, Peterson made sure to pay tribute to Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskins safety who was murdered during the 2007 season and was posthumously selected to the Pro Bowl.

"The true MVP is Sean Taylor," Peterson told Brian Baldinger of FOX after the game, via PFT. "This is also in honor of him and dedicated to him."

Taylor's Redskins teammates all wore his No. 21 in the Pro Bowl to honor him.