Sunday was supposed to be the day that all of the debate would end. Finally we would get to see these two spectacular athletes on the same field of play at the same time, when the Vikings host the Kansas City Chiefs.
But once again Adrian Peterson and Jamaal Charles won’t be going head-to-head, and once again the debate about who is the best running back in the NFL will have to wait, after Charles’ season came to an end last Sunday in Chicago when he tore the ACL in his right knee.
NBA fans love to debate who would win if LeBron James and Michael Jordan met head-to-head in their primes. Peterson and Charles began a similar friendly war of words when each claimed to be the “LeBron James of the NBA.”
But following Charles’ torn ACL, Peterson took the high road in the debate Wednesday on a conference call with the Kansas City media. Instead AP called himself the “Michael Jordan of the NFL.”
Peterson offered encouragement to Charles following a second torn ACL for the fellow Texan. According to the Star Tribune, AP will invite Charles to work out with him in the offseason.
Head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder says Jamaal Charles is in a really good place mentally because he's been through this before.
— RIP Terez A. Paylor (@TerezPaylor) October 14, 2015
“It hurt me to the core to see my guy go down and in the opposite leg as well,” Peterson said. “Knowing Jamaal, he’ll bounce back. I hated to see him go down like that. He’s been through it before with the left knee and he kind of knows what to expect during this rehab and recovering from it. That’s one positive.”
In 2011, Charles tore the ACL in his right knee. Like Peterson, Charles returned the following season and ran for a career-high 1,509 yards.
