With RB Adrian Peterson now returning to an offense stocked with pass-catching weapons and a promising young quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater, the Vikings don't plan to ask him to do it all alone in 2015.
"No question that the workload will be a lot more balanced than in the past because the organization has done an outstanding job of acquiring talent and other explosive pieces," Vikings running backs coach Kirby Wilson told Around The NFL on Thursday. "And just as the natural progression as an older back ages, the workload decreases anyway."
Wilson was quick to point out that Peterson has been "extremely explosive" in practice and "still has electric foot speed," saying: "I don't see any difference from the guy who left here X amount of months ago."
The Vikings, though, also love what they see in Jerick McKinnon, with Wilson emphasizing that the "sky's the limit" for the second-year back.
Throwing out his one-game season in 2014, Peterson never finished outside of the top 6 on a per game basis in standard formats (or outside the top 11 in PPR) in his previous seven seasons. He's now on the wrong side of 30, but his legs should be fresh after taking a full season off to deal with his criminal case. OC Norv Turner has a history of feeding the ball to his top running back; LaDainian Tomlinson averaged 20.9 touches per game from 2007-09 while he and Turner were in San Diego. That included 2.86 receptions per game, which would represent a career high 45-46 receptions for Peterson if he catches the ball at the same rate. It does sound like McKinnon will be involved, but when push comes to shove, we expect that Peterson will play the vast majority of snaps on game day.
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