Adrian Peterson held his weekly news conference today and he was asked about his hit on Pittsburgh cornerback William Gay late in the fourth quarter last week.

Peterson caught a dump off pass in the middle of the field, took two steps, lowered his head and flattened Gay. Peterson then trampled on Gay as he broke free for a 29-yard gain. "Just determination," Peterson said. "I was just trying to make a big play. It was a critical third down. I laugh about it when I see it. But at the end they came out with the win so that's really what matters. "I really didn't have too much time to prepare. I caught the ball and I turned around and he was there. I just lowered my shoulder and kept my feet moving. I gave him the business." The hit made all the highlight packages, and Peterson said he received a number of calls and text messages from family, friends and even his pastor. Straight line Rookie Percy Harvin leads the NFL in kickoff return average at 29.8 yards and is the only player with two touchdown returns. The thing that makes Harvin so dangerous is his willingness to run straight up the field at top speed rather than try and bounce everything to the outside, which you often see with returners. "That's a hard thing to teach a guy," special teams coordinator Brian Murphy said. "I think Percy has that knack and understands that if you can push the ball downfield quickly, you have a better chance than going side to side. I think you learn pretty fast that everyone on the field is pretty fast. If you go sideways, guys will track you down. It's different than college where a wide receiver is so much faster than a linebacker. There's guys that are running down that football field that can catch you if you go sideways." Harvin's approach, of course, takes a certain amount of fearlessness because there's a greater potential for the big collision. "That's Percy's makeup," Murphy said. Murphy also agreed that there is a trust fact that Harvin's teammates will block it properly and not leave him vulnerable. "It's kind of like the car movie with Tom Cruise," Murphy said, referring to Days of Thunder. "You drive through the smoke. Don't turn because you're going to get hit. Cars are splashing back and forth. Just run through the smoke and come out the other end. You have to trust they you'll come through the other end. Tom Cruise didn't in the movie." Offensive coorrdinator Darell Bevell, who was waiting in the back for his press conference, joked that "we referenced 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' in our offensive meeting room." Almost back Defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier said middle linebacker E.J. Henderson is almost back to the level he was playing at before he suffered a season-ending foot injury early last season. "There's still some things that he's working through," Frazier said. "He's really come a long way from training camp. You can see some movement in some areas where you just knew that was going to come and the next step would come and so on. He's just about where we expect him to be. He just has to keep playing and keep seeing things. When you miss 12 games of a season, to simulate that is tough deal. But some of the little things with what we do, he's gotten a lot better at." Henderson leads the Vikings in tackles despite dealing with a shoulder injury earlier this season and now a knee injury. "He wouldn't say it has anything to do with it, but as an athlete it definitely affects you," Frazier said. "You try and play through whatever the elements are but they do sit in the back of your mind, especially after what he went through a year ago and now have to deal with some other issues that affect him. I'm sure it has some degree of effect on him mentally. But he still plays extremely hard, we still makes a lot of plays for us." "The shoulder was a tough one," Frazier said. "It was a concern for all of us because you could see that it affected the way he approached things, although he was still out there and trying to perform. But that shoulder injury definitely affected what he was trying to do from a tackling standpoint." Etc. ** Bevell said he wants more balance after Favre threw the ball 50 times last week. "I wish it was Adrian running it 51 times and throwing it however many times Adrian ran it (18)," he said. "But you have to play the game however it unfolds. If you get behind, you're going to have to throw it more. If they're stopping the run as well as Pittsburgh was, then you're going to have to throw it more. We're confident throwing it, we're confident running it. But a nice mix is where we'd like to be." ** The Packers held Adrian Peterson to a season-low 55 yards rushing on 25 carries in the first meeting."They just did a nice job of making plays on us, making tackles," Bevell said. "They kind of hammered the outside and pushed us inside, kept Adrian from breaking it to the outside. They did a nice job."