Adrian Peterson believes that he can beat Usain Bolt

brofest wrote:

Another good example to show most of the guys are in the same ballpark of world class sprinters

Jacoby Ford ran faster than Shawn Crawford in college in the 100m

http://www.clemsontigers.com/fls/28500/old_site/pdf/c-track/2011-12/misc_non_event/moatm.pdf?SPSID=657798&SPID=103706&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=28500

I still think Bolt would win and I don't think these guys (Adrian Peterson, Arian Foster, Christ Johnson, CJ Spiller and other speedy running backs) could beat a healthy Tyson Gay but they would be a lot closer than most of this board is giving them credit.

No they wouldn't

No they wouldn't

One other thing to remember is that Peterson has had a major knee surgery. Another is that between running and receiving he's had close to 2,000 touches in the NFL. Knee surgery plus a few thousand NFL snaps means he couldn't even come close to running as fast as he did in high school or college.

tell me when he qualifies for the USA TRIALS.

i say he is just like chris johnson,rondo,the australian rugby player, david beckham, tiger woods, cm punk, herschel walker,hulk hogan, the little old lady from pasadena and the many others who the only running they will do is running their mouths to get their names in the paper.

these guys have been calling out bolt for 6 years and not one has gotten either the olympic/world A standard or B standard, heck none of them have run fast enough to get in the USA trials.

lets revisit this thread after the 2016 olympics so we can see how many of these non track athletes make it to the trials.

i will go out on a limb, you heard it here first i say 0, but these non track athletes will still be running their mouth.

these guys should challenge shelly-ann fraser price in the 100 or meseret defar in the 5000 at least with training they would have some chance.

atownrunnin wrote:

One other thing to remember is that Peterson has had a major knee surgery. Another is that between running and receiving he's had close to 2,000 touches in the NFL. Knee surgery plus a few thousand NFL snaps means he couldn't even come close to running as fast as he did in high school or college.

With the amount of PEDs AD had to take after that surgery in order for him to perform as he did this year, who knows, maybe he could still be within sniffing distance of a Bolt fart as he eases through the tape.

If he's serious about T&F, why not train from Jan 2013 - Jun 2013 and give the U.S. Trials a shot... and maybe the WCs if he qualifies... would seem to be great off season training for football too.

atownrunnin wrote:

One other thing to remember is that Peterson has had a major knee surgery. Another is that between running and receiving he's had close to 2,000 touches in the NFL. Knee surgery plus a few thousand NFL snaps means he couldn't even come close to running as fast as he did in high school or college.

Yes, Peterson had an amazing year, but he looked slower than he did a few years earlier as a rookie. There are others in the NFL who are clearly faster as you can see him going all out sometimes and a corner back gaining on him.

Peterson was a 10.56 wind legal pr in HS, but he never really went after many big meets. This was done as an 18 year old. He then only went 10.61 as a SR at 19 years old.

I'd give Ted Ginn (not sure about right now) at his best a better shot. He'd still lose obviously, but he was probably closer to 10 flat. People forget how good he was in HS. 13.40 110s into a 1.1 wind, and 46.5 400. If he'd run a few more races at the end of HS, or in college which they kept saying he would. He'd probably have some very fast PRs. Ted Ginn makes AP look slow. Anyone who is being realistic and has watched both play in the NFL has seen the difference in speed very easily.

I have no doubt that there are a handful of guys in the NFL that could qualify for the trials (in fact of few of them have). However, there are only 2-3 that would have a shot of making the Olympic team, even if they trained for the next four years. Finally, none would have a shot to medal.

atownrunnin wrote:

One other thing to remember is that Peterson has had a major knee surgery. Another is that between running and receiving he's had close to 2,000 touches in the NFL. Knee surgery plus a few thousand NFL snaps means he couldn't even come close to running as fast as he did in high school or college.

This ^.

Of course there is no chance that AP could be close to Bolt. But he'd even be further than some think. Remember Renaldo Nehemiah? He was an incredible hurdler and pretty damned quick flat sprinter before he went to the NFL. A few mediocre years with the 49ers and then he comes back to the track and sucks.

Sorry, but a few years getting banged up on the gridiron puts a serious dent in one's sprinting abilities. AP right now, or even with some specific training would not only get crushed by Bolt but would get crushed by a bunch of nobody NCAA sprinters. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

It's that arrogant attitude that football and basketball players have the they are the greatest athletes in the world.

Does the Olympic Decathlon Champ think he can be an NFL Pro bowler? Does the Olympic 400 champ think he could be a pro bowl wide receiver?

No, they "get" sports.

I hope this guy tries and is watching the butts if real sprinters.

kjlwklrewer wrote:

I think they're doing away with the Pro Bowl in a few years anyways. A track meet instead would be awesome. They used to have a 100 meter dash between a few of the fastest NFL players at the Pro Bowl. I recall seeing Darrell Green run, I think they may have gone in the 10.3 - 10.4 range.

They could have all kickers run the mile!

An NFL track meet would hurt the sport of track and field by displaying to the world that track athletes are b level talents who couldn't make it in real sports like football.

juicy miler wrote:

I have no doubt that there are a handful of guys in the NFL that could qualify for the trials (in fact of few of them have). However, there are only 2-3 that would have a shot of making the Olympic team, even if they trained for the next four years. Finally, none would have a shot to medal.

a few that could qualify yes.

what i am saying is these guys challenging bolt wont TRY to qualify.

yet the people who say they can beat bolt will keep coming.

peterson, johnson, rondo etc. will never run an olympic trials qualifying time (though some could) but they wont run the USATF championships.

why not have a track meet for nfl players and see what the times, some would be very good in the sprints, jumps, hurdles and throws, not so much the distances, i mean no NFL player has challenged david rudisha in the 800 have they.

anyway nfl players with no credentials have been challenging the tops in other sports forever remember nfl player tony mandarich said he could beat tyson in a boxing match in spite of mandarich never having boxed SURPRISE, SURPRISE it never came off.

why do they always got to call out the top guy? why dont they start off with someone like doc patton and IF (and that is a huge mount everest sized if) they beat patton then talk about bolt.

these guys challenging bolt without credentials is like a nfl player saying when i was in boston i watched the boston marathon on tv, and it looked so fun with all the people cheering the runners, since the boston marathon is in the nfl offseason, i think when the season is over i will start jogging so i can win boston.

is it silly or disrespectful to the top athletes in the sport?

Jeff Demps, an NCAA champion, wasn't even the fastest man on his own team:

http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20080724/NEWS/661724618

RG3 would have won multiple NCAA championships had he stuck with track as well. Top tier athletes will always choose football over track and who can blame them?

Petersen's remarks are just another example of how our sport of track & field stinks. If any legitimate sprinter came out and said I am going to rush for over 2000 yards in the NFL, the football talking heads would laugh him out of the park. But because of our lack of respect for the sport every Tom, Dick, and Harry think they can run faster than the worlds best. This is how low we have sunk in the cc/track worlds. At some point everyone associated with the sport will wake up and realize we have a lot of work to do to make the sports respectable again.

Just another example wrote:

Petersen's remarks are just another example of how our sport of track & field stinks. If any legitimate sprinter came out and said I am going to rush for over 2000 yards in the NFL, the football talking heads would laugh him out of the park. But because of our lack of respect for the sport every Tom, Dick, and Harry think they can run faster than the worlds best. This is how low we have sunk in the cc/track worlds. At some point everyone associated with the sport will wake up and realize we have a lot of work to do to make the sports respectable again.

At least Adrian Peterson has a background in track. Maybe if Usain Bolt was a football star in high school then it wouldn't sound that ridiculous to think he could be successful in the NFL.

isn't 10.26 at 18 more relevant?

So what if you put Bolt in full pads - would he still dust NFL's fastest on astroturf.

Pads would be a great equalizer - you would be bringing some track & some football to the equation.....yes?????

Everyone seems to be missing the point of what he said and the message. AP said he "believes he can do anything he puts his mind to". Its not like he was saying he would smash Bolt or degrading sprinters at all. He was saying he has the confidence that with hard work he can accomplish anything. I mean he did just rush for 2000 yds the season after tearing his ACL. If that is not inspirational than you dont "get" sports yourself, its a little different than some shin splints.

Obviously he would get destroyed by the men who dedicated their everyday life to track and field and sprinting biomechanics.

Quit being so negative and look at the positive in things. It is frustrating yes, but this football player whom may be the MVP of the NFL and one of the best football players to ever play the sport said he wants to run some track meets. How awesome is that? That is going to give track more exposure and hey if he comes out and gets bent over the hj pit by a bunch of B heat sprinters than that will also help put some things in perspective for people outside the sport. But for those of us in the sport we need to respect athletes and invite them into our world.

Who are people going to listen and respect the opinions of more about how difficult a sport is? a collegiate distance runner or Adrian Effin Peterson?

phidipidippides wrote:

I think they should just have Lemaitre race all the NFL guys who think they're so fast. Nothing will shut them up like being dusted by a skinny white French kid.

This!!

I would also like the see Peterson in a race with 7 world class sprinters.

He'll be looking up, in awe, from the starting blocks while those 7 sprinters are 30 meters into the race.

We had a football kid who thought he was gonna smoke the track sprinters. I'll give him credit, he made finals in his first big meet.

But at the end of the race, after finishing 8th, he said, "Those guys are FAST."

As has been said on this thread- football speed is not track speed.

Peterson never outright said he would beat Bolt. He said in his mind he has to go in thinking he could beat anybody. Big difference. And he said he wanted to try and make it to the Olympic Trials to see where he stood.