Brett Favre won't get Adrian Peterson to Super Bowl

NORMAN — Adrian Peterson’s handshake keeps orthopedists in business. Peterson squeezes your hand like he wants you to pull him back on the cliff. Squeezes the way he runs through NFL defenses; with ferocious purpose.

Peterson’s grip on a fulfilling pro football career is not quite so strong.

With the slippage of LaDainian Tomlinson, Peterson wears a new mantle: world’s best tailback. But Peterson’s status does not guarantee Super Bowl reservations.

If the Minnesota Vikings don’t quit fooling around at quarterback, and that includes courting the ancient Brett Favre, Peterson might never see the Super Bowl.

If the Vikes don’t show some smarts, Peterson will wake up one day, be 30 years old and will have traveled the Barry Sanders Parkway. All those yards, all those memories, and not a February to show for it.

Two years into his pro career, Peterson already has played for four starting quarterbacks: Tarvaris Jackson (17 games), Gus Frerotte (11), Kelly Holcomb (three) and Brooks Bollinger (one).

Favre almost surely will become No. 5.

"We’re just trying to sit back, figure out what’s going on,” Peterson said Friday at his youth camp on the OU intramural fields. "He’s a great quarterback. Been in the league 18 years. We’ll see how the chips fall.”

Peterson played it cool. Neither endorsed Favre nor condemned the usurping of Jackson, his teammate.

"I’m not worried about that,” Peterson said of team morale. "I’m sure mentally he (Jackson) understands it’s business. The head coach has a job to do.

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