I read a comment in another diary about why do so many people love Peterson over Benson and thought it would make a great diary topic. Here are my reasons.
Peterson is faster. He runs faster to the whole and through it and also seems to pick a whole quicker. Benson spends too much time finding a whole.
Two he runs with more emotion. He looks passionate when he is picking up touch yards. That TD run where he stood up 3 defenders and get pushing until the line was able to get there and force him into the end zone was pure will. I saw that same effort several times this year.
Three he picks up third and 1. This probably goes with the emotion, whenever we had 3 and 1 this year I knew we would hand the ball to Benson and I knew we were going to be short. Once Peterson started running 3 and 1 we started getting about half of them.
Finally, Peterson ran screen plays very well. He could catch, was dependable in the short passing game, and made a lot of plays when we needed to check down. I would love to see him get 50% of his yards from short passes. Westbrook doesn't always get a 100 yards rushing, but he always gets yards and first downs.
Is Peterson the answer at RB? I doubt it, but I think he is a decent back and could get us by for a year if we needed to. I would rather see Peterson play with a good line next year than Benson.