Adrian Peterson is having an incredible season. He’s likely to hit the 2,000-yard mark on Sunday, and he’s also chasing Eric Dickerson’s single-season rushing record. But his splits this year are…interesting.

The table below shows Adrian Peterson’s game logs. These display his traditional statistics, along with his Win Probability added, Expected Points Added, and Success Rate, all courtesy of Advanced NFL Stats; finally I have added the Vikings SRS score for that particularly game (on the season, Minnesota has an SRS of +3.0).

G#	Opp	W/L	Score	Rsh	Yds	YPC	TD	RecYds	WPA	EPA	SR(%)	SRS
1	JAX	W	26-23	17	84	4.9	2	3	0.17	2.5	50	-12.2
2	IND	L	20-23	16	60	3.8	0	20	-0.02	-2.2	40	-5.7
3	SFO	W	24-13	25	86	3.4	0	21	-0.1	-2.4	33.3	18.3
4	DET	W	20-13	21	102	4.9	0	20	0.05	1.8	40	7.5
5	TEN	W	30-7	17	88	5.2	0	15	-0.12	-1.5	33.3	9.3
6	WAS	L	26-38	17	79	4.6	0	50	-0.06	1.6	42.3	-5.9
7	ARI	W	21-14	23	153	6.7	1	6	0.12	0.4	33.3	0.8
8	TAM	L	17-36	15	123	8.2	1	4	-0.07	0.7	43.8	-22.9
9	SEA	L	20-30	17	182	10.7	2	11	0.37	9.5	52.4	5.7
10	DET	W	34-24	27	171	6.3	1	5	0.04	-0.7	25	4.5
11	CHI	L	10-28	18	108	6	0	30	-0.03	0.8	60	-7.8
12	GNB	L	14-23	21	210	10	1	10	0.42	10.4	43.5	1.5
13	CHI	W	21-14	31	154	5	2	16	0.24	2.3	45.5	11.2
14	STL	W	36-22	24	212	8.8	1	0	0.21	6.9	45.8	16.8
15	HOU	W	23-6	25	86	3.4	0	4	-0.1	-5	25.9	24.5
Total				314	1898	6	11	215	1.12	25.1	40.2	3

Peterson has only had two games this season where he averaged fewer than 3.5 yards per carry. Those two games were, without question, the two most impressive wins of the year for the Vikings. Peterson had identical stat lines of 25 carries/86 yards/0 touchdowns in shocking upsets over the 49ers and Texans.

In addition to those two games, Peterson had three other games with poor success rates — wins over the Lions, Titans, and Cardinals. According to Burke, Peterson had only two great games when it comes to Win Probability Added: they were the two losses to the Packers and Seahawks. Those were his best two games according to EPA-added and yards per carry, and those games represent two of his three highest rushing totals.

Adrian Peterson is clearly The Man. So what gives? I don’t think we can say definitively, but my guess is that a running back alone can’t simply account for too many wins. He can cause defenses to focus their attention on him, but the question often still comes down to whether or not Christian Ponder can deliver; Peterson alone is rarely enough.

There have been four games this year where the Vikings have had the ANY/A edge, and they won all four games. In three of them (SF, HOU, TEN) that differential was largely due to a great job by the defense; only against the Jaguars did the passing game really shine.

Here’s another interesting fact. In Minnesota’s wins, Peterson has 210 carries for 1,136 yards, a 5.41 yards per carry average; in Minnesota’s losses, Peterson has 104 carries and an amazing 7.4 YPC average. Among the 23 running backs with at least 50 carries in both wins and losses this year, that’s the most drastic split in the NFL.

Rk	Player	Tm	W	Att	Yds	YPC	TD	L	Att	Yds	YPC	TD	Diff
1	Doug Martin	TAM	6	134	763	5.69	5	9	157	549	3.5	5	2.2
2	Chris Johnson	OTI	5	95	558	5.87	4	10	160	629	3.93	1	1.94
3	Stevan Ridley	NWE	11	214	1024	4.79	10	4	56	165	2.95	0	1.84
4	Darren McFadden	RAI	4	96	390	4.06	1	7	101	260	2.57	1	1.49
5	Matt Forte	CHI	8	126	638	5.06	4	6	98	353	3.6	0	1.46
6	Jonathan Dwyer	PIT	5	81	362	4.47	1	7	64	209	3.27	1	1.2
7	Mark Ingram	NOR	7	82	358	4.37	3	8	64	205	3.2	2	1.16
8	Jamaal Charles	KAN	2	60	360	6	1	13	210	1096	5.22	4	0.78
9	LeSean McCoy	PHI	3	68	314	4.62	1	8	122	481	3.94	1	0.68
10	Ahmad Bradshaw	NYG	7	117	544	4.65	4	6	88	364	4.14	1	0.51
11	DeAngelo Williams	CAR	6	80	295	3.69	2	9	72	232	3.22	1	0.47
12	Reggie Bush	MIA	7	125	552	4.42	5	8	94	408	4.34	1	0.08
13	Shonn Greene	NYJ	6	140	540	3.86	5	9	117	449	3.84	3	0.02
14	Marshawn Lynch	SEA	10	206	1033	5.01	9	5	91	457	5.02	2	-0.01
15	Steven Jackson	RAM	7	128	521	4.07	2	7	89	368	4.13	1	-0.06
16	Ryan Mathews	SDG	3	52	193	3.71	0	9	132	514	3.89	1	-0.18
17	Trent Richardson	CLE	5	105	358	3.41	5	10	162	592	3.65	6	-0.24
18	Vick Ballard	CLT	10	133	516	3.88	1	5	51	220	4.31	0	-0.43
19	BenJarvus Green-Ellis	CIN	9	188	713	3.79	4	6	90	381	4.23	2	-0.44
20	C.J. Spiller	BUF	5	67	395	5.9	4	10	116	790	6.81	2	-0.91
21	Alfred Morris	WAS	9	203	876	4.32	9	6	99	537	5.42	1	-1.11
22	Ray Rice	RAV	10	185	760	4.11	7	5	69	378	5.48	2	-1.37
23	Adrian Peterson	MIN	9	210	1136	5.41	7	6	104	762	7.33	4	-1.92

Among running backs with at least 75 carries in losses, Peterson is blowing away the record for yards per carry in losses. Although another 2012 running back is hot on his heels.