MANKATO -- Running back Adrian Peterson got 10 snaps, two carries and absolutely no contact in his first day in full pads since tearing the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in his left knee at Washington on Christmas eve.
"I kind of expected to get hit or bumped or something," said Peterson, who was taken off the physically-unable-to-perform list on Sunday. "But then I saw coach [Leslie] Frazier run over to the defensive side of the ball, and that kind of opened my eyes that these guys definitely weren't going to put their hands on me. I didn't really like that too much."
But Peterson said he was happy overall just to be back on the field with his teammates rather than rehabilitating his knee on the sideline.
"It wasn't a really heavy load, but I felt like I was productive," he said.
Cornerback Antoine Winfield was in the huddle when Frazier came over to remind the defenders about the warning they had received earlier in the day.
"He said, `No touch,'" Winfield said. "He had told us No. 28 was going to be in there on that particular play. So no touching."
Peterson said that will change fairly quickly, if he has anything to say about it.
"I'm going to lower my shoulder," he said. "Those guys [on defense] are probably going to get tired of touching off [on me] and get tired of me putting my shoulder into them. They'll start firing back, and that's pretty much what I want them to do."
