The Vikings handed Peterson the ball nine times in the opening quarter, and he turned that into 59 rushing yards and three touchdowns.  That helped Minnesota jump out to the 28-0 first quarter lead, as Peterson became the first player to rush for three first quarter touchdowns since 1999.  He would finish the game with 29 carries for 122 yards and three touchdowns, as the Vikings held on to their lead this time around and walked away from this game with the 34-10 victory.

Peterson’s performance moved him into a tie with Beanie Wells for the most rushing touchdowns this season.  It also earned him “The Stat Line of the Night” for Sunday, October 9, 2011.

Members of both the NBA and NFL have come together to form the company “Lockout Professionals.”  From carpentry to Bar Mitzvah DJs, these guys do it all for the affordable(?) price of $9,000,000.99, which is somewhere around the amount of money that many of them stand to lose if their upcoming seasons are cancelled.

If you are in need of help, give them a call at 1-800-LOCKOUT and you could find Blake Griffin, Kevin Love, Tyson Chandler or Ron Artest Metta World Peace at your doorstep within minutes.

Luckily for Adrian Peterson, it appears as though the NFL is only days away from ending their lockout.

That’s right!  Four of the fastest men in the NFL may be spending their lockout season sprinting past the competition, much like they are accustomed to doing while playing football.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ Jamaal Charles tweeted this message to the Eagles’ DeSean Jackson, the Titans’ Chris Johnson and the Vikings’ Adrian Peterson.  We’re still waiting on their response, but if this dream does become a reality, I can’t wait to see them take on the team of Michael Vick, Devin Hester, Jacoby Ford and Percy Harvin.

It’s On!

Adrian Peterson may be one of the NFL’s top running backs and a franchise player for the Minnesota Vikings, but that doesn’t mean he is above the law when it comes to McDonald’s late-night bathroom rules.  One female employee found that out the hard way.

While working the late-shift at 3 am one morning, the assistant manager at a Minnesota McDonald’s noticed a man was standing at the drive-thru window asking to use the bathroom.  Rules forbid customers from entering the restaurant and using the bathrooms after the seating area has been closed, but when she recognized the man asking to use the facilities was none other than Adrian Peterson, how could she refuse?

However, not long after realizing what had happened, the mother of three was fired by McDonald’s for breaking the rules.  Luckily, she was offered her job back after the local news picked up the story and contacted McDonald’s regarding their decision.

Looks like the next time nature calls, Adrian Peterson is going to have to find himself a bush, much like the rest of us non-football stars.

Hat Tip – [The Consumerist]

Okay, so maybe Peterson’s abilities aren’t much of a secret these days, but they did seem to fly under the radar with the bookmakers this week, and he made them and everyone else who bet on the Eagles pay with his 22 carries for 118 yards and a touchdown.  The running game was a key factor for the Vikings as they not only covered the spread, but they also managed to pull off the improbable road victory with rookie quarterback Joe Webb getting the start.

Webb was quite impressive in his first career start, limiting his mistakes and scoring on a nine-yard run, but it was Peterson’s strong running that took much of the pressure off the rookie’s shoulders.  His stellar performance came on the same day that he was named to the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster, and in addition to that honor he also earns our “Stat Line of the Night” for Tuesday, December 28, 2010.

Peterson is arguably the best running back in the league and single-handedly took it upon himself to power the Vikes to victory yesterday.  The Detroit Lions defense could not keep up with him, as he rushed for 160 yards on 23 carries.  He also managed to score 2 touchdowns in the process.  His biggest run of the day was an 80 yard scamper for a touchdown in the 3rd quarter that put the Vikings ahead by an insurmountable 2 touchdowns.  That lead would hold up as they went on to win 24-10.

The Vikings have a twofold problem now.  Not only are they struggling to score points and create offense with the passing game, but the Bears and Packers are looking stronger than ever.  The Vikings will have to rely heavily on Peterson until Favre gets his rhythm back (if he ever gets his rhythm back, he is 50 you know).  For now, Peterson takes the “Stat Line of the Night” and saves the Vikings season by preventing an 0-3 start.

During halftime of Sunday’s game at the Metrodome between the Seattle Seahawks and the Minnesota Vikings, those who stayed in their seats were treated to one of the best displays of power running all day. And surprisingly, it came from someone other than Adrian Peterson. Instead, it was the University of Minnesota’s Goldy Gopher who was using stiff arms on opposing tacklers, sending the kids tumbling to the ground one at a time as he made his way towards the end zone.

Did I say kids? I sure did!

The Vikings give these young boys the opportunity to show off some of their skills in front of the thousands of fans in attendance each weekend. However, there was one college mascot in particular who was doing the impressing this time around, and he was showing a complete disregard for the well being of any possible tackler in the process.

And if all that was not enough, for some reason FOX announcer Dick Stockton seems to believe the Goldy Gopher was dressed as a bear, which he says is “very hard to figure out.” What is even more difficult to understand is why Stockton has such a difficult time identifying a gopher when he sees one.

While the first was a no-brainer, it gets difficult after that.  The emergence of several new studs lining up in the backfield will undoubtedly make any fantasy league’s first couple rounds of the draft interesting.

Here is the way we rank the leagues top 50 backs:

1.  Adrian Peterson, MIN

2.  Matt Forte, CHI

3.  Maurice Jones-Drew, JAC

4.  Michael Turner, ATL

5.  DeAngelo Williams, CAR

6.  LaDanian Tomlinson, SD

7.  Steve Slaton, HOU

8,  Chris Johnson, TEN

9.  Brandon Jacobs, NYG

10.  Steven Jackson, STL

11.  Clinton Portis, WSH

12.  Brian Westbrook, PHI

13.  Frank Gore, SF

14.  Kevin Smith, DET

15.  Marion Barber, DAL

16.  Ryan Grant, GB

17.  Ronnie Brown, MIA

18.  Thomas Jones, NYJ

19.  Marshawn Lynch, BUF

20.  Felix Jones, DAL

21.  Joseph Addai, IND

22.  Pierre Thomas, NO

23.  Jamal Lewis, CLE

24.  Knowshon Moreno, DEN

25.  Derrick Ward, TB

26.  Ray Rice, BAL

27.  LenDale White, TEN

28.  Darren McFadden, OAK

29.  Jonathan Stewart, CAR

30.  Julius Jones, SEA

31.  Cedric Benson, CIN

32.  Willie Parker, PIT

33.  Larry Johnson, KC

34.  Reggie Bush, NO

35.  Chris Wells, ARI

36.  Leon Washington, NYJ

37.  Tim Hightower, ARI

38.  LeSean McCoy, PHI

39.  Donald Brown, IND

40.  Jamaal Charles, KC

41.  Willis McGahee, BAL

42.  Justin Fargas, OAK

43.  Fred Jackson, BUF

44.  Jerious Norwood, ATL

45.  Fred Taylor, NE

46.  Darren Sproles, SD

47.  Glen Coffee, SF

48.  Le’Ron McClain, BAL

49.  Ricky Williams, MIA

50.  Chester Taylor, MIN

Visit us tomorrow when we rank the top quarterbacks.

The argument for Maurice Jones-Drew is based around simple math: Fred Taylor carried the ball 143 times for 556 yards last year, and caught 100 more. MJD carried 197 times for 824 yards, and caught a monstrous 565. Fred Taylor is now gone. 197 + 143 = 340 carries (20 less that Peterson got in 2008 and the fourth most in the league last year). 824 + 556 + 565 + 100 = 2045 total yards. Now MJD isn’t going to get over 2000 yards, but even if he performs to 75% of those projections that’s still over 1500 yards and only a handful of backs have the potential to achieve such lofty figures. But here’s the problem; assuming his tiny frame can take that workload (a big assumption), do you really want to spend the second overall pick on a guy who has never carried the ball more than 200 times or even broken 1000 yards rushing? The only thing certain is that MJD has the highest potential reward of any running back this year, but it comes saddled with a biblical risk of failure.

So that leaves Turner. First the good: he’s 27 so well south of 30; he’s playing with a good passing game that opposition Ds must respect, limiting the number of 8 man boxes he’ll see; and he saw more red zone touches than any other running back last year. The cons include the fact 51% of his 2008 rushing production was against defenses that feature in the bottom 7 for rushing and 82% was against teams ranking in the bottom, but this year he faces 9 defenses in the top 16, 6 of whom were in the top 10 against the run last year. But what headlines the argument for the anti-Turner brigade is the ‘Curse of 370’, the idea that running backs, like Turner, never perform coming off 370 carry years. Superficially the facts are pretty undeniable. Since 2000, 7 running backs (excluding Turner) have exceeded 370 carries: Larry Johnson (06), Shaun Alexander (05), Curtis Martin (04), Jamaal Lewis (03), Ricky Williams (03), Ricky Williams (02), and LaDainian Tomlinson (02). In the following year, Lewis, Alexander and Martin’s production fell by 1000 yards with Martin getting a career altering knee injury to boot, LJ’s by more than 1000, in 04 Ricky Williams retired, but in 03 his production fell by 500 yards. Only LT managed to escape the curse, posting almost exactly the same rushing figures in 2003 following his 370 carry season in 02. Things don’t look good for Turner.

But… here’s what the curse believers don’t tell you. The curse dates back to the 80s but the physical support for players now compared to 1984 is day and night, and secondary backs – like Jerious Norwood – are much more prominent so they help ease the workload. Because of this I think it’s only fair to measure Turner’s chances of escaping the curse against running backs after 2000. Considering no running back reached 370 carries in 2007 or 2001, Curtis Martin was over 30 when he broke the mark and Ricky Williams retired, the statistical pool is limited to say the least. So how can we increase the test pool to really put the curse to the sword?

Take 10 carries and split them over 16 games, that’s less than a carry a game. What about 20 carries? 1.25 a game. With top running backs managing a 4.0 YPC, 4 extra yards a game is negligible. So let’s say 40 carries over 16 games would give your running back an extra 10 yards a game, 1 fantasy point a game, and a significantly increased chance of wear and tear. That means that over a year, it would seem to make little difference whether you carry for 330 or 370 carries. So what’s the fate of running backs that have carried over 330 times? Does the heavy workload curse prevail, or does it fall apart when you increase the pool of players? 33 running backs have carried 330 times or more post-2000. Of those, 14 saw a drastic fall in production of more than 400 yards, 6 did better, 2 saw a slight downgrade of between 200 and 400 yards and the remaining 10 saw relatively little change to their numbers.

14 running backs (6 of whom managed over 370 carries) seeing a fall of over 400 yards is a hefty number, but I think this goes a long way to debunking the ‘Curse of 370’. Heavy workloads hurt backs. Agreed. But don’t discard Turner on draft day simply because of him breaking an arbitrary number of carries (370) decided by what seems to be a statistical fluke. If over a course of a season 40 extra carries isn’t as significant as you would believe and the track record of those surpassing 330 isn’t terrible, why all of a sudden is it doom and gloom for The Burner? After all, if AP had just 7 more measly carries he would of broken 370, but no one is concerned about his output this year. It boils down to this: history isn’t stacked against Turner like many would have you believe, and in all actuality he only has a 42% chance of being affected by his 330+ carry heavy workload. If Turner hits then he’ll blow Forte out of the water, and until he’s done ‘it’ jumping on the MJD bandwagon is risky business. So don’t fear Turner come draft day if you find yourself burdened with the ‘2,3,4’ dilemma.

After witnessing his impressive 25-yard touchdown run against the Miami Dolphins on Friday night, what better time to evaluate the former Memphis back and his fantasy value.

It is no secret that Williams is a serious threat to score a touchdown anytime he touches the ball.  Last season he recorded an impressive 1515 yards rushing and 18 touchdowns , adding another 121 yards receiving and two more TDs.  While such numbers would often warrant early first-round consideration, that has not stopped some leagues from allowing him to slip into the second round.

Some have him ranked as high as a second overall pick on fantasy mock drafts but others have him falling out of round one.  What should we make of the fourth year man?  Where does Williams deserve to be drafted?  Should we be worried about the emergence of Jonathan Stewart in the Carolina backfield?

We are here to answer these questions.

Let’s begin with the Jonathan Stewart question.  Will DeAngelo be seeing a decreased workload because of Stewart’s presence?  Yes, he likely would.  Should this worry us?  No, it should not.

The Carolina Panthers have one of the best offensive lines in football, and as you may expect from any team with a good offensive line, they like to rush the ball.  Last season, they ran the ball an average of 31.5 times per game.  That means that even with an equal distribution of the carries in the Carolina backfield, Williams would still see the ball 15-16 times per game.  When you take into consideration his 5.5 yards per carry, Williams numbers would average out to approximately 88 rushing yards per game.  Over the course of a 16 game season, that would give him 1408 yards rushing, more than all but three other players in the league.

What must be kept in mind is that when you can break the big run like Williams can, a slight decrease in workload is not as devastating as one would originally believe, and breaking the big one is exactly what DeAngelo has done.  Last season he broke off 5 runs of 40+ yards and 15 of 20+ yards.  Only three teams were able to record runs of 40+ yards, and only five could surpass his 15 rushes of 20+yards.

The loss of touchdowns should not be much of a worry either for owners of DeAngelo Williams.  Last season he combined with Stewart to record 30 total TDs.  Even when split equally between the two of them, the number is still a total of 15, an average of almost one per game.

Williams is only 26 years old and is entering his 4th season in the league.  Age is not an issue for him and there should be no worries that the Panthers are preparing Stewart to be their back of the future.  Williams is as much a part of the Carolina backfield’s future as anyone, and with Stewart still being hampered by a nagging Achilles injury throughout preseason, Williams may even see an increased roll in the running game, rather than a decrease.

The fact of the matter is that Williams is undoubtedly worthy of an early first round pick.  Just how early is the next point of contention.  Adrian Peterson is a lock for top spot in my eyes, and I would likely go with Matt Forte, Michael Turner and Maurice Jones-Drew ahead of him because of the decreased threat of a running back by committee system in Chicago, Atlanta and Jacksonville, respectively.

Then comes the number five position.  That is where I would have him.  You can make the case for LaDanian Tomlinson, Steve Slaton, Chris Johnson, or Steven Jackson, but I do not believe any of them to have the potential stat line that Williams has proven he can produce.

Don’t agree with me?  Then check out this clip.  It just may help change your mind.