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Vikings running back Adrian Peterson has five full seasons in the NFL. Last week, he turned 27.

Recent history regarding the positions tells us that he may be closer to the end of his career than the beginning.

Vikings G.M. Rick Spielman thinks otherwise. During Thursday’s PFT Live, he described Peterson as the “face of the franchise,” a “unique talent,” and a “future Hall of Famer.”

“He’s not like most running backs that I’ve been around through my career,” Spielman said. “He is just a freak athletically and you can see that in his rehab and how quickly he’s coming back from this ACL and I know he wants to go out there and prove to everybody he’s a better Adrian Peterson than he was before the injury.”

That won’t be easy to do, because Peterson was pretty darn good before he went down. Still, it looks like he’ll continue to be the focal point of the Minnesota offense indefinitely into the future, which definitely makes him an exception to the current rule of NFL running backs.