The Sports Xchange

Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, the center of attention as training camp got underway over the weekend, doesn’t see an end to his career for many years to come.

Peterson’s newly renegotiated contract runs through the 2017 season, when he will be 32 years old.

“I don’t see the end,” Peterson told Peter King of TheMMQB.com. “Straight up and honest with you, I feel like, and I don’t know if I’ll do this, because I feel like once my mind tells me, ‘You know what — I’m not loving this game anymore,’ I’ll walk away whenever that time is. But I honestly feel I can play this game until I am 36 or 37 years old. And at a high level.”

The embattled running back was greeted by several hundred fans on Saturday at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., waiting for his autograph and to welcome him back to the Vikings.

The 2012 NFL Most Valuable Player who rushed for 2,097 yards that season — nine yards short of breaking Eric Dickerson’s single-season record — is rejoining the team after sitting out almost the entire 2014 season as a result of his indictment on child injury charges last September. He was reinstated from the commissioner’s exempt list in April.

Peterson told King he was sure he would never be traded all along.

“The reality, and just to be straightforward with you … I knew I really wasn’t going anywhere,” Peterson said. “I am the type of person that likes to look at things from different views, so I put myself in the Vikings situation — the owners, the head coach. We’re not gonna let you go. I revert back to the Percy Harvin situation. Me, if I was the owner of the Vikings, there’s no way I would have let him go. But unfortunately for us, he ended up leaving — but that’s the way I would have looked at it.

“More importantly, my situation with the Vikings is we’re like family. I’ve been around the people in the building for eight years. … I’m in a good place. I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful family. … I am really happy to be back with the Minnesota Vikings and to really get this season going.”

The Vikings and Peterson, who ranks 28th on the NFL career rushing list with 10,190 yards, appear ready to put the past behind and prepare for the 2015 season.

Peterson is one of only seven players to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. He is 8,165 yards behind Emmitt Smith’s all-time rushing record of 18,355.

Peterson, a six-time Pro Bowler, has set a record-breaking goal for rushing yards in 2015.

“I always keep the mark at 25 (2,500 yards), so if I get close to that, that’s not bad,” Peterson told the Vikings’ website.