Minnesota Vikings unlikely to keep Adrian Peterson after 2014
Minnesota Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson is clearly one oft he best backs to ever play the game. His combination of size (6’1, 217 lbs.) and speed (he has supposedly been clocked at a 4.3 40-yard dash before) sets him apart from nearly every other back. He has 2,033 career carries for 10,115 yards, which ranks 27th all-time (although with a typical Peterson season in 2014, he will move into the top 15).
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Peterson was selected by the Vikings with the seventh-overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft and has been a star for the Vikings since. He rushed for 1,341 yards and 12 touchdowns as rookie and hit his peak in 2012 when he rushed for 2,097 yards and 12 touchdowns on 348 carries, leading the Vikings into the playoffs.
However, the 2014 season may be his final season in Minnesota. According to Charley Walters of The St. Pioneer Press, the Vikings are unlikely to keep Peterson beyond next season and suggests Peterson could join the Dallas Cowboys after the 2014 season.
"Adrian Peterson, 29, probably will need to have a 2,000-yard season to return to the Vikings next year, mainly because his salary ($14.4 million this season) increases to $15.4 million in 2015, and that’s prohibitive for anything less than a sensational running back in his eighth NFL season.Should Peterson, who is signed for $31 million in 2015-2016, decline a pay cut next year, he could become a free agent. The home-state Dallas Cowboys could be his next destination."
The Cowboys could make sense as a destination – Peterson played his college football with the Oklahoma Sooners and is from Palestine, Texas where he attended Palestine High School.
Peterson rushed for 1,266 yards and 10 touchdowns on 279 carries in 14 games for the Vikings last season.