Adrian Peterson will try to gash the Packers one more time

Adrian Peterson has had some of his biggest games against the Minnesota Vikings’ divisional rivals the Green Bay Packers.

This weekend the Packers play the Vikings in a showdown to determine the NFC North champion. As a sidebar, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson also has a chance to lock down his third career rushing title.

If all you look at is Peterson’s history against the Packers, you’d have to say he has a pretty good chance to clinch that rushing title.

Peterson has played the Packers 15 times in his career in the regular season, rushing for a total of 1,693 yards in those games. He’s gone over 100 yards eight times.

September 30, 2007: Rookie Peterson plays his first career game against the Packers at Metrodome. He rushes for 112 yards but the Vikings lose 23-16.

September 8, 2008: Peterson goes for 103 yards on the ground with one touchdown. The Vikings fall to the Packers at Lambeau by a final score of 24-19.

November 9, 2008: The Vikings eek out a 28-27 win over the Packers at home, largely thanks to Peterson’s 192 rushing yards.

2009: The Vikings beat the Packers twice during the regular season but Peterson fails to go off in either game, rushing for 55 yards in the first game and 97 in the second.

October 24, 2010: The Vikings lose to the Packers 28-24 in Brett Favre‘s final game at Lambeau Field. Peterson rushes for 131 yards and one TD.

October 23, 2011: The Vikings fall to the Packers at home 33-27, their third of five straight defeats at the hands of Green Bay. Peterson runs for 175 yards and a touchdown.

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December 2, 2012: In the midst of a historic 2,000-yard season, Peterson gouges the Packers for 210 yards and a touchdown. The Vikings still manage to lose 23-14.

December 30, 2012: Adrian Peterson runs for 199 yards, just nine yards shy of what he needs to break Eric Dickerson‘s single-season record. The Vikings beat the Packers 37-34 and clinch a playoff berth.

The next week, Peterson runs for 99 yards as the Vikings fall to the Packers 24-10 in the first round of the playoffs.

November 24, 2013: The Vikings and Packers battle to a 24-24 tie at Lambeau Field. Peterson runs for 146 yards and one touchdown.

Peterson earlier this year ran for just 45 yards on 13 attempts as the Vikings fell to the Packers 30-13.

How many carries will Peterson get Sunday? How many yards will he put up against the Packers?

Green Bay’s run defense has been poor overall this year, and especially bad recently. The Packers are surrendering 4.5 yards-per-attempt this season, but have given up 5.8 yards-per-attempt over the last three games.

The Packers surrendered 121 yards on the ground to Arizona last week, 120 to the Raiders the week before that and 171 to Dallas the week before that.

Peterson meanwhile has been relatively quiet lately, posting just one 100-yard game in the past four weeks, that coming last week against New York.

Peterson’s numbers have been far-from-staggering lately but there have been extenuating circumstances.

The Vikings shut down the run game against Seattle because they were getting blown out, resulting in Peterson rushing for only 18 yards.

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Against Arizona and Chicago the Vikings had enough going in the pass game that they didn’t need to just feed Peterson the ball. He had 69 and 63 yards in those games respectively.

Against New York the Vikings had everything going, rushing and passing, and got 104 yards out of Peterson on 22 carries.

Going into this weekend’s game, Peterson leads Tampa Bay’s Doug Martin by 64 yards. An average game by Peterson against the Packers would almost guarantee him the rushing title.

But Peterson will no doubt be looking for a lot more than an average game against the Packers.

Peterson wants to rack up big yards against Green Bay’s porous rush defense and help give the Vikings the NFC North crown.

If history is any indication, Peterson could be in for a huge night at Lambeau Field.

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