Why Adrian Peterson Will Break Eric Dickerson's Record

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4 reasons Adrian Peterson will make history

On Christmas Eve of 2011 in a victory over the Washington Redskins, Adrian Peterson tore both his ACL and MCL. This left physicians nationwide predicting with such a serious injury, he would not be back on the field at full health until December of this year.

Adrian Peterson had other plans.

Instead of making a return this holiday season like many predicted, he is making a push for the history books.  Peterson is 294 yards away from breaking Eric Dickerson's record for most rushing yards in a season (2,105) Peterson currently stands at 1,812 yards and is confident in his chances.

Why should he not be?

With only 2 games left in the season, these are the 4 reasons Adrian Peterson will run for the record.

1   He is on FIRE 

Peterson has rushed for over 100 yards in eight consecutive games including going for over 200 yards twice. In that span he has averaged 7.46 yards per carry while racking up nine touchdowns. He has also had two huge runs for over 80 yards in the past three games. He is definitely in top form.

With the record 294 yards away Peterson needs to average 147 yards per game. That is not far off from his season average (129.4) and 45 yards less than his December average (192). If his December average keeps up he will finish with a whopping 2,196 yards on the season beating the record with ease.

With this next point, that number doesn’t seem too farfetched.

2  He has only been getting stronger

Adrian Peterson’s splits according to ESPN.com prove that as this season has progressed, Peterson’s game has done the same

After an average start, he picked up his play to an elite level. With Peterson looking better than ever, I don’t see the Texans, Packers, or even his knees having a shot at stopping him.

3 The Texans rushing defense is overrated

The Texans are coming into Sunday’s matchup with the 5^th overall rushing defense allowing 93.2 yards per game.

Texans slightly overrated defense

This stat could look intimidating, but taking a closer look, the Texans’ opponents have not rushed the ball many times at all.

In fact the Texans have allowed the fewest rushing attempts in the NFL this year thanks to their offense blowing teams of the water each game. The opposing team is forced to abandon the running game early on to play catch up.

Houston allows 4.1 yards per carry, which ranks 12^th in the league. This is a more accurate depiction of the Texans ability to stop the run.

This places the Texans at an slightly above average run defense and considering what Peterson did to the Seahawks 10^th ranked run defense (182 yards, 2 TDs) I don’t see the Texans being much of a halt to the one they call “All Day”

4  Adrian Peterson owns the Packers (Statistically) 

Though the Vikings have been only 3-8 against the Packers since Adrian Peterson's arrival, he has still put up dominating stats on the ground.

In week 13 this year, Peterson racked up 210 yards with a whopping 10 yards per carry in Green Bay. Though it came in a losing effort, Peterson looked unstoppable for the majority of the game. This has been the norm for Peterson throughout his career.

In 11 career games against Green Bay, Adrian Peterson has 1,243 yards rushing (Most against any NFL team) with a 5.6 yards per carry average.

With an exception of a couple one sided affairs where the Vikings had to play catch up by passing predominantly, Peterson has preformed at a prime level when facing the rival Packers. With the all-time rushing title on the line, I expect no difference.

Sources: espn.com, cbssports.com, sports.yahoo.com