On ESPN's Monday Night Football coverage analyst Ray Lewis said he sees similarities between Adrian Peterson and the Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders that surely will make the Minnesota Vikings cringe.
Lewis said he fears Peterson may soon have to make a "business decision" that could cause him to walk away from the game at a time some still consider him to still be in his prime, just as was once the case with Sanders and the Detroit Lions.
"Me going out on that field tonight and me looking at Adrian Peterson's eyes, it's something that I want to bring up that I don't want to see happen to this young kid," said Lewis. "Because we saw it happen to a great one one time before, which was Barry Sanders."
Lewis' reasoning seems to be despite being one of the best backs to ever play the game, Peterson, just like Sanders, could soon grow weary of playing alongside, at best, mediocre quarterbacks that provide him with little chance of winning in any meaningful way.
With the exception of a 12-4 2009 season with Brett Favre as the signal-caller, Peterson has spent much of his career toiling with the likes of Tavaris Jackson, Joe Webb, Gus Frerotte, Matt Cassel and Christian Ponder.
"If he keeps going down this road... he plays the game with so much love, and he plays it so hard," added Lewis. "To do him like that, to surround him with a team like that, I don't like to see great people go through things like that."
Off the field, things have been even worse for Peterson, who earlier this month was forced to bury his two-year-old son.
The body of Tyrese Robert Ruffin was found in his South Dakota home earlier this month. Police have charged Joseph Robert Patterson, the boy's mother 27-year-old boyfriend, with second-degree murder. Patterson is now being held on $750,000 bail.
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