Adrian Peterson to focus on ball security and the Super Bowl for 2016
By Adam Carlson
Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson struggled with ball security during the 2015 season, and wants to be more reliable in next year’s action.
Adrian Peterson had a pretty solid year for the Minnesota Vikings in 2015. He led the NFL in rushing yards and helped propel the team to a playoff berth and the NFC North championship. However, there are always things to work on in order to continue getting better and take the next step as a team.
One of the biggest areas where Peterson hopes to show improvement in ball security. He led the NFL in fumbles during the 2015 season (6) and knows that if the Vikings want to take the next step as a team that they need to take better care of their opportunities at scoring.
Peterson spoke about wanting to focus on holding onto the football in a recent article on the ESPN website.
"“The first thing that comes to mind is making sure that I put emphasis on protecting the ball. That’s going to be my number one objective going into this offseason,” Peterson said. “I’ve joked around and said, ‘Yeah I done put the ball on the turf but how many have I lost? There’s guys that have lost more fumbles than me this year.’ But when it comes back and it bites you in this type of way, it’s something I want to put an emphasis on for this offseason.”"
Even if Peterson does put in a lot of work on ball security, he’ll likely still find himself on the sidelines on third downs. He doesn’t excel at pass blocking like Matt Asiata or show the same kind of catching ability out of the backfield as Jerick McKinnon does, but those are also parts of his game that he’d like to do more of in the future.
"“You look at the young guys [like] Jerick, he comes in a lot on third down and he presents a different piece to our offense, running routes and things like that. I envision myself doing things like that at a different level so that’s what I mean by being more involved and being more diverse when it comes to the offense we have,” Peterson said."
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If the Minnesota Vikings can take better care of the football and be a more efficient offense, they could be a very scary team in the NFL playoffs. In fact, Adrian Peterson thinks that an appearance in the Super Bowl should be the top goal for the team.
"“I already set my top goal for next year, to win the NFC North and playing in the Super Bowl in Houston,” Peterson said."
It will be interesting to see what Adrian Peterson’s future with the Minnesota Vikings will have in store for the veteran running back. Taking care of the football and not being a liability in the passing game would make him a much bigger asset to the Vikings offense and keep the defense guessing.
Sadly, fans have a long time to wait before we find out anything about what the Vikings are planning on doing with their personnel as well as the direction that this young team will move in. However, it’s still great to see Adrian Peterson taking some responsibility for his fumbles and want to take Minnesota to the promised land.