Adrian Peterson was eight games into his NFL career when the San Diego Chargers came to the Metrodome on November 4, 2007. He walked off that afternoon with the single-game rushing record: 296 yards on 30 carries, three touchdowns, and a 35-17 Minnesota Vikings win. Nineteen seasons later, nobody has topped it.
He got most of it after halftime. Peterson had 43 yards on 13 carries in the first half. In the second half he ran 17 times for 253 yards.
A quiet first half
The Vikings were 2-5 and coming off a 23-16 home loss to Philadelphia. San Diego, coached by Norv Turner, was 4-3 and had won three straight. The Chargers defense spent the first half keeping Peterson inside, and his longest run before the break was 17 yards, which set up his 1-yard touchdown run in the first quarter to tie the game 7-7.
Minnesota lost its starting quarterback, Tarvaris Jackson, to a concussion late in the second quarter, and Brooks Bollinger came in. Then, on the last play of the half, Ryan Longwell tried a 57-yard field goal. It fell short, and Antonio Cromartie caught it nine yards deep in the end zone and ran it back 109 yards for a touchdown, the longest play in NFL history at the time. San Diego led 14-7.
253 yards in two quarters
Peterson’s first carry of the third quarter gained 6 yards. His second came on third-and-2 from the Minnesota 36, and he went through the left side for a 64-yard touchdown that tied the game. Later in the quarter, after seven straight running plays, Bollinger found a wide-open Sidney Rice for a 40-yard touchdown and a 21-14 lead.
Nate Kaeding’s 36-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter cut it to 21-17. Peterson then broke a 12-yard run to the San Diego 19 and lost the ball, his only fumble of the day. Drayton Florence recovered. After a San Diego punt and a 42-yard return by Mewelde Moore, Peterson took the next snap around right end, waited for his blockers and ran 46 yards down the sideline for a touchdown. Chester Taylor added a 2-yard score, and it was 35-17 with 4:28 left.
That left one question. The Vikings took over on downs at their own 10 just before the two-minute warning, and Peterson was 38 yards short of Jamal Lewis’s record of 295, set for Baltimore against Cleveland in 2003. Everyone in the building knew who was getting the ball. Peterson ran up the middle for 35 yards, and Marlon McCree added an unnecessary roughness penalty at the end of it. Two plays later, with 1:04 left, he went up the middle again for 3 yards. That made 296.
| Qtr | Time | Team | Score | SD | MIN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5:48 | SD | LaDainian Tomlinson 1-yard run (Nate Kaeding kick) | 7 | 0 |
| 1 | 2:52 | MIN | Adrian Peterson 1-yard run (Ryan Longwell kick) | 7 | 7 |
| 2 | 0:04 | SD | Antonio Cromartie 109-yard missed field goal return (Kaeding kick) | 14 | 7 |
| 3 | 12:55 | MIN | Peterson 64-yard run (Longwell kick) | 14 | 14 |
| 3 | 3:15 | MIN | Sidney Rice 40-yard pass from Brooks Bollinger (Longwell kick) | 14 | 21 |
| 4 | 14:09 | SD | Kaeding 36-yard field goal | 17 | 21 |
| 4 | 7:54 | MIN | Peterson 46-yard run (Longwell kick) | 17 | 28 |
| 4 | 4:33 | MIN | Chester Taylor 2-yard run (Longwell kick) | 17 | 35 |
By the numbers
| Number | Detail |
|---|---|
| 30 for 296 | Adrian Peterson rushing, 9.9 yards a carry, with touchdowns of 1, 64 and 46 yards |
| 43 and 253 | Peterson’s yards in the first half and the second half |
| 378 | Minnesota rushing yards, a franchise record, on 43 carries |
| 528 to 229 | Total yards, Minnesota to San Diego |
| 16 for 40 | LaDainian Tomlinson rushing, with a touchdown |
| 19 of 42, 197 | Philip Rivers passing, with an interception and a lost fumble |
| 109 | Yards on Antonio Cromartie’s missed field goal return |
| 63,043 | Attendance at the Metrodome |
The top of the list
| Yards | Player | Game | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 296 | Adrian Peterson | Vikings vs. Chargers | Nov. 4, 2007 |
| 295 | Jamal Lewis | Ravens vs. Browns | Sept. 14, 2003 |
| 286 | Jerome Harrison | Browns at Chiefs | Dec. 20, 2009 |
| 278 | Corey Dillon | Bengals vs. Broncos | Oct. 22, 2000 |
| 275 | Walter Payton | Bears vs. Vikings | Nov. 20, 1977 |
Nobody has seriously threatened the mark since. The closest in recent seasons was Saquon Barkley’s 255 yards for Philadelphia against the Rams in 2024. In 2026, through six weeks, the best single game is Bijan Robinson’s 194 at Green Bay in Week 3.
“I wasn’t thinking about the record at all”
Peterson said after the game that he had no idea how close he was. “Oh, no. I was out playing ball,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking about the record at all.” He was also the first rookie to rush for 200 yards twice in a season. Three weeks earlier he had run for 224 at Chicago. “I set my bar high, because I know anything is possible when you continue to work hard,” he said.
Tomlinson, the reigning MVP, went looking for him on the field afterward. “I was just sitting over there on the sidelines, and to have over 200 yards in the second half, that’s impressive,” Tomlinson said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Vikings safety Darren Sharper put it more simply: “Every time he touches the ball, my jaw drops.” Brad Childress was asked whether he had the best running back in the league. “Yeah, you can’t feel any other way right now,” the Minnesota coach said.
Turner remembered it the same way years later, when he was Minnesota’s offensive coordinator. “What I remember was in the first half we actually, I thought, contained Adrian pretty well,” he said. Then came the 64-yard run on third down. “It all broke loose then. We couldn’t get him on the ground, and he looked like a guy that was possessed.”
What came next
The game pushed Peterson past 1,000 yards at the midpoint of his first season. He finished 2007 with 1,341 yards and 12 touchdowns, and he was named Offensive Rookie of the Year. The Vikings won five straight in November and December but lost their last two and finished 8-8, out of the playoffs. San Diego went 11-5, won the AFC West and reached the AFC Championship Game, where it lost 21-12 at New England.
Peterson’s best season came five years later. In 2012, less than a year after tearing his ACL, he ran for 2,097 yards, 8 short of Eric Dickerson’s single-season record, and won the MVP award. He finished his career with 14,918 rushing yards. The jersey and pants he wore against San Diego went to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Peterson’s afternoon belongs with the other big rushing days in our history series, from Jim Brown becoming the career leader in 1963 to Emmitt Smith passing Walter Payton in 2002. The late hit on his 35-yard run is the kind of flag our guide to unnecessary roughness explains, and the end-of-game clock that day is covered in our new guide to timeouts.
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