All hail A.D.

It is time now to ask if Vikings halfback Adrian Peterson is the greatest football player of all time.
Through 14 games this season, Adrian "All Day" Peterson has rushed for a league-leading 1,802 yards, putting him 433 yards (!) ahead of runner-up Marshawn Lynch, and within striking distance of Eric Dickerson's all-time single-season record of 2,105, which has stood for 28 years.
Career rushing totals like those of Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton are as much about luck — both in avoiding injuries and, say, landing on dominant Super Bowl teams — as anything else. More interesting to wonder is if, in this blinding moment, Peterson is the best there has been.
Consider: As he approaches Dickerson's mark, Peterson does so with the league's last-place passing offense. Peterson sizing up a defense is like young Rickey Henderson eyeing the pitcher from first base. "We both know I'm going to run. So stop me."
Consider, also: Last Christmas Eve, Peterson tore both major ligaments in his left knee, leaving some to wonder what might remain of his gifts. His astonishing recovery adds to the present achievements, but make no mistake: What Adrian Peterson does week after week is incredible not because he is coming off knee surgery, but because he is a human being. Or so we are told.
Along the way, he has shown moments that recall the game's immortals: the bullish, get-off-me charge of Jim Brown; the fast-faster-gone dash of Gale Sayers; the ballet of Barry Sanders. Whatever it is that draws you to the game — bloodlust for the gladiator's violence or delight in the artisan's performance — Peterson provides it. He is Beauty and the Beast; he is the thunder that frightens and the lightning that illuminates.
Peterson's chase for the record comes down to the Vikings' final two games — away at Houston to face the Texans, then a final home game against the Packers. As always, he will carry the load, with each step kicking up a bit of dust in the pro football history books, each breathtaking run challenging what we know of physical phenomena.
Is he the greatest of all time? The question has no answer. Or, rather, it has a dozen answers, depending on which bar or barbershop plays host to the inquisition. The point of asking isn't to find the answer.
The point is to start the conversation. And Adrian Peterson is in it.