The greatest hypothetical question for the just-completed Vikings season is, of course, what would have happened to this 7-9 squad had Adrian Peterson played the entire season instead of missing 15 of 16 games as a consequence of his legal problems?

Like all hypothetical questions, it's impossible to know the answer (unless you have a key to an alternate universe that would play out the 2014 Vikings season with AP in the mix. If you do, please don't use it on football. Use it on something cool like a version of The Matrix in which Tom Cruise really does get the role of Neo).

In the mean time, all we can do is make an educated guess. And here are three things we think would have happened:

1) First, clearly, it would have benefited the Vikings. We probably don't need a hypothetical answer to know that. But how much would it have benefited the Vikings?

We've heard it suggested that the Vikings might have challenged for the playoffs with Peterson on the roster all year, and that is almost certainly not true. There were too many other holes on this team, and there is also the relative contribution of running backs to victories.

The site Advanced Football Analytics attempts to put a value on players called "Win Probability Added," which is similar to baseball's "Wins Above Replacement." It's an imperfect stat, but it at least gives us a baseline for a conversation.

In the course of his career, Peterson's cumulative WPA is 4.15. Yes, just a little more than four wins for his entire career. Even in his best season, Peterson's WPA was 1.24 (2012, his MVP year). Matt Asiata this year had a WPA of 0.45, good for 14th in the league. So based on raw numbers, even if Peterson had his best season ever, the difference between Peterson and Asiata would have been good enough for fewer than one win. (A really good quarterback can have a WPA for a single season above 5, as Aaron Rodgers did this year. Teddy Bridgewater's WPA was 1.33 this season, 21st in the NFL and still better than Peterson's MVP year — underscoring how much more QB play matters than running back play).

Again, this is an imperfect metric. It's hard to account for just how much Peterson changes a defense's focus and how he might have helped in both the running and passing games. But the best guess is maybe the Vikings would have finished 8-8 with Peterson. Maybe 9-7 in an extraordinary case. And quite possibly they would have finished 7-9, just as they did.

2) Had Peterson played all year, we're fairly sure there would have been at least a slightly different evaluation of Bridgewater and Mike Zimmer. Both had strong first years, providing hope for the future. But both also had grades that had the caveat "considering they were without their best player for almost the entire season" attached. Had they produced close to the same seasons with Peterson as they did without him, we imagine the view would have been complimentary but not as much so for both Zimmer and Bridgewater.

3) The Vikings would now be facing a difficult offseason decision based purely on football. Peterson will turn 30 before his NFL suspension is over and well before the 2015 season. He is due to count more than $15 million against next year's salary cap but the Vikings can cut him and pay a small fraction of that — which would free up more money to fix things like the offensive line. Based on the shelf life of NFL running backs and other holes on the team, parting ways with Peterson might be a prudent, if unpopular, decision. Had the Vikings gone into the offseason with this decision looming based solely on football, it would be very difficult to sell to the public. As it is, they face a similarly tough decision, but if they part ways with Peterson they can at least sell it as a parting of ways and a fresh start — maybe even something mutually agreed upon by both sides.