Comments on: Adrian Peterson’s amazing, except when the Vikings win http://www.footballperspective.com/adrian-petersons-amazing-except-when-the-vikings-win/ NFL History and Stats Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:07:35 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.3 By: Corey http://www.footballperspective.com/adrian-petersons-amazing-except-when-the-vikings-win/#comment-6113 Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:07:35 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=5641#comment-6113 There’s an extremely simple explanation for this: Peterson’s long runs skew the numbers to the point of making any analysis of them next to useless.

Peterson averaged 17.3 carries in the Vikings’ six losses. Three of his runs in those games went for 82, 74 and 64 yards. Take out those three carries and you have a line of 101 carries for 540 yards, or 5.35 YPC. In Minnesota’s 10 wins, Peterson had long runs of 82, 61 and 51. Subtract out those three carries, and you get a line of 241 carries for 1,141 yards, or 4.73 YPC.

By just pulling out three runs, your gap goes from 1.92 to 0.62. (Hardly scientific, but I think it illustrates pretty well that one or two long runs — which he could break at any time against any team — have a huge impact on the numbers.

]]> By: Vhawk http://www.footballperspective.com/adrian-petersons-amazing-except-when-the-vikings-win/#comment-5862 Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:32:11 +0000 http://www.footballperspective.com/?p=5641#comment-5862 I think a reasonable inference would be that going overboard to gear up to stop a RB at all costs is a really bad idea and leads to you getting stomped by a really bad QB.

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