Thursday, January 3, 2008

Vikings' Peterson with runaway performance on field, and in voting


Adrian Peterson is impressed. Not so much by his achievements, though he ran away with The Associated Press NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year voting the same way he surged past opposing tacklers this season.
What has gotten the attention of the Minnesota Vikings running back is whom he joins as winners of the award.
"It's a great honor to join a list with names like those," Peterson said Wednesday when told that Jim Brown, Emmitt Smith, Eric Dickerson and Billy Sims also won the award. "They are guys that I looked up to growing up. It's a goal that I set before the year started, to win rookie of the year, so it feels great to accomplish that."


Peterson, who set the league mark for rushing in a game with 296 yards in a 35-17 victory over San Diego, also had a 224-yarder in a win against Chicago. The key to Minnesota's improvement to an 8-8 record this season, he led the NFC with 1,341 yards rushing, second only to San Diego's LaDainian Tomlinson in the league. His 78 points on 13 touchdowns were second in the conference.

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