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Adrian Peterson: Vikings can “win everything” this year

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Adrian Peterson believes Vikings can win it all this year, but Mike Florio says that he and Bridgewater must match up.

The Vikings made it to the playoffs last year, losing to Seattle in a heartbreaking old-school game for the ages.

This year, the team’s best player in years thinks the franchise can have its best outcome ever.

“We are going to have a good chance to win it this year -- win everything,” running back Adrian Peterson told Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “Sit back and watch. Sit back and watch. You can be like, ‘I thought you guys were at least a couple of years away.’ Nope. You sit back and watch, this year.”

Peterson said winning a Super Bowl has become his primary motivation now that he’s on the wrong side of 30.

“I don’t spend too much time thinking about [winning another rushing title],” Peterson said. “But it’s a seed planted in my brain, and it’s sticking there. Everything in me is championship, championship and then breaking records. It’s a part of me. I am pushing myself to the max to win a Super Bowl, and then to break Emmitt’s [all-time rushing] record and Eric Dickerson’s [single-season rushing] record. It is my everyday life, what I think of every day. Mostly it’s that Super Bowl. Then the whole world will remember you.”

It’s sounding as if he may have only five more chances to do it. Less than a year after Peterson said he could play 10 more seasons, he’s starting to be more clear as to his personal expiration date.

“Once I get to 38, I don’t think I’ll have the same love of the game,” Peterson said. “Sometimes I get tired of training camp. I think I can endure five more [camps], but after that, I don’t know.”

What he does know is that he still has plenty left in the tank.

“Not to be cocky or anything, but I know, at 31, my end is going to be better than my beginning,” Peterson told King. “One thing I know, and will remain true: These young guys will never outwork me. I put my body through the grind. . . . I don’t get into the 30-year-old running-back thing, that you’re done at 30. I am getting stronger with age.”

The challenge for the Vikings is to get the most out of the team’s young quarterback, Teddy Bridgewater, while Peterson still has gas in the tank and love of the game. If both can get to the point where they are performing at a high level at the same time (and if the defense continues to perform under coach Mike Zimmer), maybe the Vikings can get back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 40 years -- and win it for the first time ever.