On Feb. 28, the Minnesota Vikings decided to “call it quits” with long time all-star RB Adrian Peterson. This may have come to a shock to many, but according to various stats and the amount of playing time he got in the past few seasons, it seems that he is slowly bringing the team down.

AP gets into the game and averages a little more than four yards a carry. If a team wants to get to the playoffs and succeed in them, they need a dominate pass game as well as a run game. Without both of these factors, witty defenses will shift to one or the other and usually for the Vikings over the past decade, the defenses would have to shift for the run game because of Peterson being such a threat. Nowadays, the run game for the Vikings is literally the worst in the NFL. The worst rushing yards per game, the worst blocking running backs in the league and so on.

The running backs and Peterson are not all to blame for the horrid Minnesota run game though. The offensive line has been nothing short of heartbreaking. They are horrendous, ranking in the bottom 10 in nearly every category the offensive line statistics have to offer. So the weight on Peterson’s shoulders has been great, it just seems he is not carrying the team on his back as much as he used to.

The teams that are heard most when talking about Peterson’s new freedom coming into free agency are the Houston Texans, the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants along with the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings are not completely out of the picture yet because they did not release him, rather they just did not pick up his player option for the 2017 season seeing as it seemed undeniably overpriced for the veteran RB who has not done much for us at all.