After tearing his meniscus against the Green Bay Packers, we figured Minnesota Vikings running back and child abuser Adrian Peterson was likely finished for the year and possibly forever.
His earliest potential return date after having surgery is in late December. Besides that, he’s 31 and was terrible during the first two weeks of the season. So it certainly looked like it might be the end of the road.
Well, the Vikings took the logical step and put Peterson on injured reserve on Friday.
They could, of course, give Peterson the designation to return, meaning pull him off IR at a later date. If they did that, the soonest Peterson would be eligible to play would be week 11. However, his recovery timetable makes that unrealistic.
Despite Peterson’s terrible early-season stat line — 31 carries, 51 yards, 1.6 ypc — defenses were still stacking the box to stop him. It will be interesting to see how they play the Vikings offense without Peterson.
We doubt anyone is afraid of Matt Asiata, which would suggest defenses would shift their attention toward Sam Bradford and Stefon Diggs.