National Football League

Packers bar banner taunts Peterson

Published Jan. 6, 2013 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

The Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings are bitter division rivals, have played each other twice in the last five weeks and faced each other a third time Saturday night in the first round of the playoffs.

The primary reason why Minnesota managed to make it to the playoffs was the performance of running back Adrian Peterson. Peterson — one year removed from tearing the ACL and MCL in his left knee — rushed for 2,097 yards, becoming the seventh player in NFL history to break the 2,000-yard barrier and finishing just nine yards shy of the single-season record held by Eric Dickerson.

Despite those gaudy numbers, a Green Bay bar decided to taunt Peterson with the above banner (Twitter photo credit to @KeithLeventhal), saying "Hey Adrian, this is what 9 yards looks like," calling attention to the narrow margin by which he missed the NFL record.

Peterson was particularly dominant against the Packers, rushing for 210 yards in his first game against Green Bay and 199 in his second. That second performance resulted in a Vikings win and spot in the playoffs, and cost the Packers a first-round bye. Green Bay won Saturday night, 24-10. Peterson still rushed for 99 yards.

The picture went viral on Twitter, and Minneapolis-based Associated Press writer Jon Krawczynski guaranteed Peterson would be made aware of the sign.

"My sources say Adrian definitely will be seeing this pic," Krawczynski tweeted.

That apparently happened a short time later, thanks to Jeff Anderson, the Director of Corporate Communications for the Vikings.

"Just for fun, showed Adrian photo of popular GB bar sign," Anderson tweeted. "[Peterson] smiled, then gave confused look/response: 'But we got the win?'"

Peterson will get his chance to respond on the field when the Vikings and Packers square off at 8 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.