FanHouse Adrian Peterson

Back when Tarvaris Jackson was assumed to be the long-term quarterback of the Vikings, his teammates talked around any question of whether Jackson was the right man for the job.

But now that we're just waiting for Brett Favre to make it official that he's going to be a Viking, and Sage Rosenfels is set to be the backup, it's pretty much open season for players (or player's dads) to explain what it's been like in recent years.

"Retired" quarterback Brett Favre can't seem to escape the headlines. With all the talk about his second unretirement in as many years, it makes sense that players on potential Favre opponents would start weighing in.

Bears linebacker Lance Briggs is the latest to chip in his two cents. He's fully supportive of Favre's rumored comeback to Minnesota.

Of course, Briggs doesn't hope for a Favre comeback so he can watch Favre wing touchdown passes.

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FanHouse's crack squad of savvy fantasy football personnel put our five heads together and amassed consensus rankings for non-keeper, standard scoring leagues. We'll update as the season gets closer, but this is our "incredibly early yet still fun" version.

In an otherwise jumbled mess, there is one thing we know about the running backs when it comes to fantasy football drafts: Adrian Peterson is easily the class of the position. After that, there appears to be a large clump of running backs who have a good chance to excel this season. If you think the old school fantasy football "running back-running back" draft strategy (drafting a running back in each of the first two rounds) is truly antiquated, ask yourself the difference between a Frank Gore and Marion Barber tandem in your backfield as opposed to Ronnie Brown and Jamal Lewis. Is it worth taking a wide receiver, then, before a Barber type?

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According to ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert, the Vikings are breaking out of their shell.

Minnesota's offense has been pretty predictable in the past couple of years--handoff to Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor a lot and hope they break a long run, run Bobby Wade over the middle and hope Tarvaris Jackson connects with him and then send Bernard Berrian deep.

Earlier this week, EA Sports released the player ratings for Madden 10. And now, with the NFL Draft in the rearview, and nothing else to do between now and training camps, we'll ponder the important questions. Like: How is [Player who is obviously rated too high] rated above [Player who is obviously rated too low]?

It's fun and original!

Will Brinson kicked it at The OC for the Nike Global Training Summit.

Adrian Peterson is the reigning rushing leader in the NFL and widely regarded as the best running back in football (with all due respect to Mssr. Tomlinson). Peterson is also considered the best fantasy player in the nerdy sports world, so I asked him about whether there was anyone else worth the No. 1 pick, whether he played fantasy football and what his goals were for this year.

Oh yeah! Totally forgot -- he might be getting Brett Favre as a teammate soon. So we obviously talked about that too.

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

It was 20 years ago that Bo Jackson became a pop-culture icon when Nike featured him in a series of "Bo Knows ..."commercials for what was then a new kind of shoe, the Nike Cross Trainer. Now Nike has come out with a new Trainer 1 shoe, and to celebrate the release they brought together superstars from all sports for the 2009 Nike Training Summit. Superstars like Amare Stoudemire, Brandon Roy, Larry Fitzgerald, Adrian Peterson, Troy Polamalu (right) and more talk about everything from who they think the greatest athletes are (Troy's answer will surprise you) to what other sports they would play if they could cross over like Bo (again, Troy's answer will surprise you).

Check out the video after the jump.

Last week, I left the comfort of my mother's basement shoddy little East Coast apartment to rep FanHouse at the 2009 Nike Global Training Summit in Newport Beach, California. The primary reason for convening 50-some media members in sunny SoCal? The introduction of the Nike Trainer 1, the Swoosh's newest crosstraining shoe, which celebrates the 20-year anniversary of the "Bo Knows" campaign, featuring Bo Jackson.

Will Brinson kicked it at The OC for the Nike Global Training Summit.

Disclaimer: FanHouse in no way endorses any particular shoe or believes any brand to be superior to another when discussing athletic apparel. This is just one blogger's (albeit a brilliant one) opinion of the culturally significant release of the product that Nike calls the "Trainer 1."

There are two important aspects of shoes (much like everything else): form, and function. The Nike Trainer 1, which was unveiled to sneakerheads and media folks at Newport Beach this past week, receives high marks for both in an impressive fashion.

I've often argued -- unoriginally -- that, in general, NFL teams should avoid using first-round picks on running backs. Salary-cap friendly alternatives can often be found later in the draft, and other, harder-to-address needs -- like offensive line or wide receiver -- can be targeted in the early rounds.

There are exceptions: most recently Adrian Peterson, Steven Jackson and LaDainian Tomlinson. But the NFL scrap heap is littered with former first-round backs who never panned out. It's too early to classify Laurence Maroney as such, but his three-year career has, so far, been underwhelming.