For every player on the right side of a highlight reel, there’s a player on the wrong one. For RB Adrian Peterson, he was the windshield. For one play, CB William Gay was the bug.
In one of the most iconic runs of his eventual Hall of Fame career, Peterson trucked Gay in a 2009 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings. Trailing 20-17 with two minutes to go, QB Brett Favre flipped a short pass to Peterson at the first-down marker. Gay charged hard to make a stop at the sticks but Peterson lowered his shoulder into his chest, put Gay into the ground, and kept on running until the Vikings were in field goal range.
Truly one of the most brutal impacts by an offensive player in NFL history, right up there with Earl Campbell’s hit on Los Angeles RamsLB Isiah Robertson in 1978.
While it would’ve been easy for Gay’s teammates to clown on him after the fact, Ryan Clark says that didn’t happen. In fact, no one said anything about that moment. Responding to one Twitter/X user who posed the question, Clark said: “Not one word! Was what it was.”
Ugly as the moment was, Gay can take solace in knowing it was the best runner of his generation dishing out that impact. It might’ve been a different story had a lesser back than Peterson put the hurt on in that way. Gay was giving up a good 20-30 pounds and made an honest effort to fly in and make the stop at a pivotal moment of the game. Gay was a fine tackler and run defender who just came out on the wrong end of a football play.
What surely eased the pain took place two plays later. Despite being in range to tie the game, LB Keyaron Fox (who also finally tackled Peterson on the above play) picked off a tipped screen pass and ran it back 82 yards the other way for a touchdown. Pittsburgh held on to win, 27-17. It would hold as the only game between Ben Roethlisberger and Brett Favre in their careers, Roethlisberger inactive a 2005 matchup between the Steelers and Green Bay Packers.
Peterson’s moment against Gay will be replayed a thousand more times and shown in every highlight reel of his career. It’s a play you’ll see again soon considering Peterson’s eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2027, the same class Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown first become eligible. Though an ugly play, there’s no shame in what happened to William Gay. His teammates, and anyone who played against Peterson, clearly understand.
