Adrian Peterson: Punch Out!

In last night's Monday Night Football, the Minnesota Vikings' Adrian Peterson had a costly fumble in overtime at the 39-yard line. The pass play to Peterson was actually a nice gain of 16-yards for Peterson, but the key on the play was Bears linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer came from behind Peterson and hit that ball with a Mike Tyson-like uppercut and shot the ball out. It was fitting that Hillenmeyer forced the fumble, he only had 15-tackles (13-solo) and a pass defended in the game for a Bears defense that has been far from a quality unit this season.

When you drop the ball at that range all you ask of your offense to do it pound the ball for 7-8 more yards and get the field goal attempt to less than a 50-yard attempt. Ignore the fact that Bears place kicker Robbie Gould missed a 45-yarder earlier. This time Jay Cutler took the ball off Gould's feet with a beautiful 39-yard pass to wide receiver Devin Aromashodu completing his best game as a professional. (7-receptions, 150-yards, 1-TD)

Too many fumbles for Peterson's career is the black cloud hanging over his head. It is exactly why Hillenmeyer punched the heart out of that ball and the Vikings. Sure players are taught and told to try and force turnovers, Peterson's propensity for fumbling tells defenders to really go at him. That fumble was Peterson's seventh fumble of the season and sixth that has been lost. That's a negative stat for such an incredible running back. Losing 86% of your fumbles is unacceptable and just why does he fumble so much?

Fumbles by Games per Season
2009 Fumbles
• Detroit - September 20, 2009 - (-3 yards rushing)
• Green Bay - October 5, 2009 - (-2 yards rushing)
• Detroit - November 15, 2009 - (+43 yards rushing)
• Detroit - November 15, 2009 - Bad pitch back
• Chicago - November 29, 2009 - (-3 yards rushing) *
• Chicago - December 28, 2009 (+16 yards rushing) Overtime

2008 Fumbles
• Tennessee - September 28, 2008 - (0 yards rushing)
• Detroit - October 12, 2008 - (+4 yards rushing)
• Detroit - October 12, 2008 - (+4 yards rushing)
• Green Bay - November 9, 2008 - (0 yards rushing)
• Detroit - December 7, 2008 - (+3 yards rushing)
• Detroit - December 7, 2008 - (+12 yards rushing)
• Atlanta - December 21, 2008 - (+7 yards rushing)
• Atlanta - December 21, 2008 - (+2 yards rushing)
• NY Giants - December 28, 2008 - (+3 yards rushing)

2007 Fumbles
• Kansas City - September 23, 2007 - (+4 yards)
• Dallas - October 21, 2007 - (-1 yards)
• San Diego - November 4, 2007 - (+12 yards)
• Green Bay - November 11, 2007 - (0 yards)
(All stats taken from ESPN.com's NFL pages)

Seventy-two percent of the plays Peterson fumbled went for 4-yards or less. So... what gives? What is Peterson doing to have so many fumbles? Vaseline on the arms, weak hands, what gives? Nope... Adrian Peterson never clutches the ball when the situation arises. Most ball carriers switch hands when running in the open field to keep the ball away from a defender; most ball carriers hold the ball with both arms (clutched) when knowing they're getting tackled; Peterson just doesn't seem to be aware that he needs to protect the ball.

Peterson is a very aggressive running back who is not afraid to hit a defender while in stride, combine that with a lose grip and bad things may happen. However, in the game last night Peterson runs right by Hillenmeyer towards the sidelines. Ahead of him are two other Bear defenders and one Viking blocker, but it was like Peterson never would think Hillenmeyer could have caught him from behind and he never protects the ball. (See the play here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy4x6QGi9d8)

You cannot entirely blame him for the loss last night, the fumble helped cost them the #2 seed in the playoffs, next fumble may eliminate them.

Peterson and his coaches should have already had this reoccurring problem wrapped up.

(*Funny thing about this game, AP's 2nd fumble was overturned as by the instant replay officials, yet he still was credited with a fumble in the 'Box Score' according to ESPN.com on AP's player profile page (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/profile?playerId=10452); however when reviewing his Stats page (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/players/stats?playerId=10452) it shows only having 6-fumbles (5-lost) through 15-games... the numbers don't add up.)