Adrian Peterson's return to game action could indeed come Friday night when the Vikings host San Diego at Mall of America Field. Cleared to return to practice last week, Peterson's workload and exposure to contact will be gradually increased over the next three days. And towards the middle of the week, the coaching staff will re-evaluate whether Peterson is ready for game action.
"We're going to get him a little bit more each day and see how he responds," head coach Leslie Frazier said Sunday. "We need to determine what's the next step."
Peterson has said he wants to see some preseason action if at all possible before reaching his goal of being on the field for the regular season opener on Sept. 9.
The best chance of getting that preseason work will be Friday night when the Vikings figure to use their starters for the entire first half and perhaps early into the third quarter against the Chargers. Will that open the door for Peterson to see some work?
"We have some ideas on how we want to approach it," Frazier said. "But a lot of it depends on how he feels with some of the things we're going to give him this week."
