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This Day In Sports…March 21, 1985:

The birthday of “All Day”. If Boise State’s first Fiesta Bowl seems like yesterday to you, consider that Peterson played 15 seasons in the NFL after that. Relevant locally is the fact that the Broncos held the Oklahoma star to just 77 yards rushing—25 of them on the first snap of overtime—in their 43-42 upset of the Sooners on New Year’s Day 2007. Peterson had missed the previous seven games, all Oklahoma wins, with a broken collar bone, but he returned for the Fiesta Bowl rather than opt out to prepare for the NFL Draft. It was still a great defensive effort by Boise State. He was still Adrian Peterson, for cryin’ out loud.

Peterson was then drafted seventh overall by the Minnesota Vikings and set an NFL single-game record with 296 rushing yards as a rookie. He won the NFL rushing crown in his second year with 1,760 yards and rolled through his first four seasons in general. Then late in his fifth campaign, Peterson tore both his ACL and MCL in a Vikings game at Washington. He responded by returning to the lineup less than nine months later and leading the NFL in rushing in 2012 with 2,097 yards, just eight short of Eric Dickerson’s single-season record for second-year players. Consequently, he was named the league’s MVP.  

Early in the 2014 campaign, Peterson was indicted on child abuse charges and was ultimately suspended without pay for the season. He was reinstated in February, 2015, and topped the NFL rushing list again that year. But injuries took their toll after that. There was a torn meniscus in 2016. In 2017, Peterson signed with New Orleans and was traded to Arizona after four games. He finished the season on injured reserve with a neck injury. Peterson recorded his final 1,000-yard season with Washington in 2018 and did a slow fade after that, playing for Detroit and Tennessee before finishing his career in 2021, appearing in one game for the Seattle Seahawks.

Peterson was an instant hit when he began his collegiate career at Oklahoma. He had an Ashton Jeanty-type season right out of the gate, rushing for an NCAA freshman record 1,925 yards. Peterson garnered unanimous All-American honors and was the Heisman Trophy runnerup. But there were always side stories during his career—a half-brother and a son who died violently. Peterson’s father, Nelson, was a shooting guard at Idaho State. He was sentenced to prison for 10 years for laundering drug money. Nelson Peterson was released in 2006 and got to watch Adrian in the Fiesta Bowl. Adrian Peterson…40 years old today.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.) 

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