Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel had a straight forward conversation with Adrian Peterson after the NFL’s fifth all-time leading rusher showed up in Nashville.
Vrabel said Wednesday he told Peterson to, “Go as hard as you can, take care of the football, try to learn the details of the play, play with great effort and don’t do dumb stuff to hurt the team.”
Peterson, 36, who has 14,820 career rushing yards, hasn’t played since spending the 2020 season with the Detroit Lions where started in 10 games and played in 16. He rushed for 604 yards on 156 carries.
The Titans added Peterson and fellow free agent running back D’Onta Foreman on Tuesday to fill the void left in the backfield after the loss of Derrick Henry, who injured the fifth metatarsal in his right foot in Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts. Henry underwent surgery Tuesday.
Vrabel played against Peterson during his NFL career, so he’s familiar with his running style.
Ready or not: Will Tennessee Titans’ Adrian Peterson be ready to face L.A. Rams? ‘I don’t know’
Success: Tennessee Titans’ Derrick Henry has successful foot surgery | Report
“He’s always run extremely hard, I think he’s been decisive,” Vrabel said. “He’s strong with the football. We’ll see where he’s at this week and work towards the end of the week and see who’s going to end up helping us.”
Since Peterson and Foreman, who was used sparingly for the Titans in 2020, haven’t played this season, Vrabel said the first order of business is to figure out what type of condition each player is in. Both were on the field with the Titans Wednesday, for a non-contact practice.
“You hope that they’ve been doing some stuff and then the workout tries to define what kind of shape they’re in a little bit,” Vrabel said. “We’ll have to work them back into shape and put some pads on them and try to give them some contact and see if they can adjust to take care of the football.”
Reach Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or on Twitter @MikeOrganWriter.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Titans coach Mike Vrabel to Adrian Peterson: Don’t do dumb stuff to hurt the team