Sport
Adrian Peterson gets NFL MVP, Offensive Player of the Year while Robert Griffin III top offensive rookie award
—Washington’s Robert Griffin III, who beat out a strong crop of quarterbacks for the top offensive rookie award.
— Houston end J.J. Watt, who took Defensive Player of the Year, getting 49 of 50 votes.
— Bruce Arians, the first interim coach to win Coach of the Year after leading Indianapolis to a 9-3 record while head man Chuck Pagano was being treated for leukemia. Arians became Arizona’s head coach last month.
—Carolina linebacker Luke Kuechly, the league’s leader in tackles with 164, who won the top defensive rookie award.
Peterson returned better than ever from the left knee surgery, rushing for 2,097 yards, 9 short of breaking Dickerson’s record. He also sparked the Vikings’ turnaround from 3-13 to 10-6 and a wild-card playoff berth.
He received 30 1-2 votes to 19 1-2 for Manning.
“I played my heart out, every opportunity I had,” Peterson said. “The result of that is not what I wanted, which is being in the Super Bowl game. But I have a couple of good pieces of hardware to bring back and put in my statue area. So it feels good.”
