Since Master Tesfatsion is spending his bye week in California — and obnoxiously sends me pictures of swimming pools and sunsets and things like that while I spend the bye week bundled up as I shop for snow blowers online — I will take over his weekly Four Downs mailbag this week.

Since I laid out everything we know about the Adrian Peterson saga in this story in today's paper, this will be a Peterson-free mailbag, although I'm sure he will get mentioned at up some point. And since I'm not Master, there probably won't be any asides about sneakers or Chick-fil-A or what it's like to be from Texas. My apologies in advance.

I think the better question is where Chase Ford falls into the mix. As I wrote on the blog yesterday, Ford is starting to settle into that pass-catching role with 11 catches for 127 yards and a touchdown the past two weeks. But he is the one who will be most affected when Kyle Rudolph returns from injury (Rudolph is shooting for the Bears game next weekend). Rudolph may need a game or two to get back to taking on a full workload, but the Vikings were expecting big things from him in this offense and signed him to that big deal during training camp. He will be the pass-catching tight end and Rhett Ellison will still have an important role as a blocking tight end in two-TE sets, a role that has kept him on the field for 56.2 percent of the offensive snaps this season. Once Rudolph is back to full strength and gets his conditioning level back up, it will likely be hard for Ford to get on the field, though I would be intrigued to see what the Vikings could do in a two-TE set with a pair of pass-catchers on the interior like the Patriots used to do before Aaron Hernandez became a real-life "Grand Theft Auto" character. After all, Teddy Bridgewater loves throwing to his tight ends.

There is no doubt that Smith is a player the Vikings will try to keep for the long haul. He is an ascending young safety who will likely get serious consideration for the Pro Bowl. Personally speaking, he has quickly become one of my favorite Vikings to watch and I've enjoyed my interactions with him in the locker room. So yeah, signing him makes sense to me. The problem for Smith is that he is in the third year of his four-year rookie deal, which includes a team option for a fifth season, which they can and likely will exercise this offseason. So the Vikings don't have to be in any rush to sign him. That being said, they can open contract talks with him after the season and it may make sense for them to lock him down now before his value rises even more.

The conversation about Patterson sure has changed over the course of the season. In training camp, I was one of the many to say that Patterson was poised to be a breakout star for the Vikings. He had that big game in the opener, doing most of his damage as a runner, then didn't make much of an impact. The story then became "Why isn't Cordarrelle getting more touches?" Then after a few weeks it evolved to "OK, what's wrong with Cordarrelle?" Big picture, nothing is wrong with him. He is a great talent who is in his second year in the NFL. It can sometimes take some wide receivers longer than others to break out, and this was a kid the Vikings drafted as an underclassman after he spent less than a year in Div. I program. So long term, there is no reason to panic. In the short term, though, sure, Patterson's struggles have hurt the Vikings a little bit. They have no choice but to let him learn on the fly, though, given the investment they have in him and the fact that there aren't really any better options on the roster. Head coach Mike Zimmer suggested on Monday that Patterson doesn't always run the right route or that he sometimes runs the right route but not at the proper depth, which has made it hard for him and Bridgewater to get something going. The Vikings are not worried about Patterson's future, though, and neither should you be.

OK, I caved. I will mention Peterson after all, but only because this is strictly a football-related question. Operating under the assumption that Peterson is reinstated — whether he will be is undetermined as I type this — the Vikings wouldn't be bringing him back to be part of a committee, not with all the scrutiny that would be sure to come. But surprisingly, the Vikings have actually been running the ball pretty efficiently in Peterson's absence lately and they now rank sixth in the NFL in yards per carry. I think the Vikings would still find a way to keep exciting rookie Jerick McKinnon involved as a change of pace and a third-down pass-catching back, and maybe there would be ways to use Peterson and McKinnon together. But Matt Asiata's role would probably greatly diminished. The Vikings like Asiata because he can do everything fairly well, including running between the tackles and getting it done at the goal line. But if Peterson were to return, he would take over those responsibilities. That wouldn't leave much for Asiata to do, outside maybe coming in as a pass protector as he is by far the best of this bunch at that.

BYE WEEK BONUS DOWN! Before the season, I predicted that the Vikings would go 8-8. My thought was that if the Vikings could survive that challenging start, they might be able to build some confidence and some momentum. That's exactly what they have done, so I'm going to stick with the 8-8 prediction. Every game from here on out is winnable, though the home game against the Packers, the Lions game in Detroit and the December trip to Miami will be very challenging. But I think 8-8 is probably the ceiling. And that's OK. With a new coach installing a new defense, a rookie quarterback trying to find his way and the Vikings having to deal with all the turmoil early in the season, going .500 wouldn't be a bad thing at all. That would set the stage for them to maybe be playoff contenders in 2015 if Spielman's seven, especially Bridgewater, continue to develop.