Peterson ‘holds back tears’ as Vikings fans cheer

1:24 AM ET

MINNEAPOLIS — With two minutes left and the game well in hand, the Minnesota crowd turned its appreciation to someone it knows well: Adrian Peterson. And the cheers caused Peterson, one of the hardest runners in the NFL, to choke up.

The Washington Redskins running back, who moved into sixth place on the NFL’s all-time rushing list earlier in the game, was shown on the scoreboard in both end zones, leading to a prolonged ovation, chants of “AP!” and Peterson twice waving to the crowd. The second time, he kissed his fingers and showed them to the crowd. He smiled, but he later said the applause also caused him to be emotional.

“I had to hold tears back, to be honest,” said Peterson, who spent 10 years with the Vikings, rushing for a franchise-record 11,747 yards and 97 touchdowns. “It was special, a special moment.”

He also called it a bittersweet one, considering the Redskins lost 19-9. But Peterson showed he still had life left, rushing for 76 yards on 14 carries. Washington had the ball for only 8:01 of the second half, giving Peterson fewer chances to run — but it was a much better return to Minnesota than the one he made in 2017, when he rushed six times for 18 yards for New Orleans in the season opener.

This one meant a lot to both Peterson and the crowd. That Saints game was known for the scowl Peterson gave to coach Sean Payton. There was no scowl to be seen Thursday.

“Just coming back and seeing the love they still have for me and they showed, man, it felt good,” Peterson said. “Even in defeat I’m able to embrace it and take it for what it was, and it meant a lot. I spent a decade here, so just to see that ovation and the love they showed, it was meaningful.”

Peterson even caught himself doing something he once did often during his decade here.

“There was a couple times during the game I caught myself singing the Skol song,” he said of the Vikings’ fight song. “It’s a natural instinct. Some things are just triggered.”

It was also another night in which Peterson moved up the all-time rushing list. He passed both Jerome Bettis and LaDainian Tomlinson and now resides in sixth place with 13,701 yards. He trails Curtis Martin by 400 yards for fifth place. Peterson has rushed for 383 yards this season, but 275 have come in the three games since Jay Gruden was fired.

“It means a lot,” Peterson said of passing Bettis and Tomlinson. “Came to the game expecting to climb the ladder and these guys I’m passing are the ones that paved the way for me. I loved LT growing up and Bettis, big boy running that ball extremely hard. That’s kind of how I got some of my motivation to be really aggressive, watching him banging in there. To look up on the screen and see that I passed those guys, it’s humbling. But this is what I set forth to accomplish.”