TheFanatic said:
I do think Peterson has been a bit rusty in some areas from having a full season off. Things like fumbling is something he has needed to focus on improving again, thankfully the Vikings have recovered most of his fumbles.
As he mentions, he has been stopping his feet when a clear hole doesn't open right away, that he will focus on keeping his feet moving because that is how he keeps his power and momentum in front of him.
He has never been good in pass protection. Something he has said he wants to get better at and become a good all around RB. Well he may have been working on it, but he hasn't gotten better. The Vikings gave him the opportunity to prove he can be trusted there over the first four games. He failed a lot and the Vikings have pulled him from 3rd down situations now.
Peterson leads the league in rushing yards at 961. The next closest player in this category is Chris Johnson at 734. So Peterson has a 227 yards lead on the rest of the league.
Peterson is 3rd overall in total yards from scrimmage at 1099. Only Antonio Brown and Devonta Freeman are ahead of him. Freeman is ahead of him by 42 yards due to having 29 more receptions.
In standard leagues Peterson is RB 2 behind Freeman with 139.9 points. RB 10 and below do not have 100 points yet.
In PPR leagues Peterson is RB 4 behind Freeman, Ingram, Miller with 156.9 points.
Only two players are averaging over 100 yards rushing per game. Peterson at 106.8 yards/game and Gurley at 101.3 yards/game.
Yeah that guy is really disappointing... The guy is going to break 1,000 yards in his 11th game of the season behind that O-line. Why did I waste a roster spot on this guy? Why doesn't he have 1500 yards by now? So disappointed...
Hey Peterson could have doubled his receptions by now if he could be relied upon on 3rd downs. Those receptions to Asiata could have been to Peterson if he were a complete RB who knew how to pass block proficiently enough to be used on all 3 downs. So that is a real disappointment for me.
To be disappointed about any thing else would be pretty silly. Peterson has carried this team at key times throughout the season. He is currently on pace to rush for 1712 yards which will be amazing if he keeps this pace for the rest of the season.
Peterson has never been much of a pass catcher so why is this disappointing to you now? 95% of his fantasy output is on first and second down his entire career. You shouldn't be disappointed in that, you should have more realistic expectations of what Peterson does.
Outside of last year (and this year of course), Peterson has 206 receptions over the first 7 years of his career. That comes out to about 29 catches per year. This year he's on pace for 33. So he's actually doing better than his yearly average while averaging 4.9 yards per carry, leading the league in rushing behind a suspect offensive line and with a mediocre QB. Again, how is this disappointing? I wish he had a few more TD's but that's a wish, not a disappointment..
ETA Matt Asiata has a grand total of 12 catches on the season for 70 yards. Three games this season he hasn't had a catch and he's never had more than 3 in a game.
It isn't a huge disappointment.. I think it would be a tremendous tactical advantage for the Vikings to be able to use Peterson on all 3 downs and for him to be used on screens. The defense would be less certain of the potential play calls if Peterson was not a liability in pass protection.
Norv Turner has a long history of using a primary RB to do everything and those RB catch the ball a lot when they do everything. He talked about getting Peterson more involved in the passing game since early 2014 after he was hired.
For decades I have been hearing how pass protection is all about effort and want to. That it is a skill any and all RB develop in time.
Well Peterson gives outstanding effort and has terrific work ethic. Despite this he has never developed adequate skills in this aspect of his game.
True to his word Norv Turner used Peterson on all 3 downs to start the 2015 season. He failed in pass protection. A lot. Eventually he was removed from that role and it was taken over by Asiata.
So I am disappointed that Peterson for whatever reason is not able to do this.
From a FF perspective receptions to RB generally leads to easier and more yards than you would expect from an average rushing attempt. If Peterson were the target of those 10 or so receptions Asiata has accumulated he would be at around 30 receptions right now and the yards that come with it, instead of being at 19 receptions. This could have paced for a career year in receptions for Peterson by him having over 43 by end of the season.
As many people play PPR formats Peterson is devalued in that scoring system in a way he would not be, if he were even average in pass protection and therefore had more receptions.
Those things are all disappointing and point towards the same thing.
Why can't Peterson develop his pass protection skills?
Myself and many other Vikings fans have been complaining about how Childress and Bevel would spell Peterson with Chester Taylor so much. Then this continued with Musgrave and 2nd round pick was used on Toby Gerhart to cover Peterson's weakness in this area. So many complaints about this and criticism of the coaches for not using Peterson in the passing game more. Now Norv Turner gives Peterson the opportunity to do that for the first time in his career and he failed at it. Badly.
So along with this disappointment also comes the revelation that maybe myself and other Vikings fans shouldn't have complained about this and blamed the coaches for being so dumb. When the truth is they were just working with what they had and Peterson is not good at this part of his game.
Peterson in my eyes will never be as good as Walter Payton and many other complete RB who can pass protect.