For those who believe that the St Louis Rams’ Todd Gurley plays a lot like Adrian Peterson, the best of runner in the NFL over the past decade, there is an empirical study this week. The two will be on the same field when the Rams face the Minnesota Vikings.
In truth, there is not much to compare, yet, since Peterson is in his ninth season of what surely will be a Hall-of-Fame career. Gurley will be playing in just his sixth game.
But the Rams rookie brought it on himself with a spectacular series of performances. After sitting out the first month while recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament injury that ended his college career at Georgia, Gurley has put on a dazzling show.
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He saw limited action in his first professional game, then ripped off 566 yards in his last four. No running back in the Super Bowl era ever has totalled that much rushing yardage in his first four starts.
His counterpart Peterson ran for 607 yards in his first five starts in 2007. And from what he has seen, the veteran is OK with the side-by-side look.
“He reminds me of myself,” Peterson told the team’s website last week, specifically referring to Gurley’s speed, physicality, agility, vision and balance.
Anything else?
“Just the determination he runs with,” Peterson said. “You don’t see a lot of running backs that run that way.”
Gurley has been humbly hushing the comparison, but concedes they share some physical and stylistic traits. Gurley is 1.85m, 102.9kg. Peterson is 1.88m, 98.4kg.
“He’s probably a lot more muscular,” Gurley told the Associated Press. “We both kind of run hard and don’t like to go down.”
There also is that breakaway speed.
Gurley already has produced seven runs of more than 20 yards. Every team he started against got a taste of his danger. He popped one for 52 yards against Arizona, 55 yards against Green Bay, 48 yards against Cleveland and a 71-yard touchdown against San Francisco. None of those teams held him under 128 yards rushing.
Mike Zimmer, the Minnesota coach, summarised Gurley’s rare combination of talents that allow him to run through larger men at the line of scrimmage, then elude and outrun smaller defensive backs.
“He runs violently, then he has the acceleration to hit the home run,” Zimmer said. “He’d be more fun to watch if we weren’t playing against him.”
Most importantly, Gurley’s presence has sparked the Rams to a 3-1 record in his four starts. His early success has validated St Louis’ faith in him.
Running backs are considered by some to be risky first-round selections, especially one still rehabilitating a serious knee injury. Runners have notoriously short careers. They often are viewed as easily replaceable parts for a team, usually available as free agents and in later rounds of every draft. Unless there is a “special” one, as Rams coach Jeff Fisher has often referred to Gurley.
The Rams took Gurley with overall pick No 10, apparently unconcerned about the damaged knee. After all, one of the most famous torn ACLs once belonged to Peterson. The Vikings back tore his in December of 2011. He returned to the field nine months later and ran for 2,097 yards that season, the second most in history.
No doubt the Rams hope that comparison is as relevant as any.
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