It had to warm the cockles of a few icy, barbaric, Minnesota Vikings fans hearts when it was reported early Tuesday that All World running back Adrian Peterson would be abandoning his quest for a trade and reporting to the team for OTAs.
Peterson, now 30, said that he's ready to "put on a Vikings uniform and get back to work," which pretty much flies in the face of everything he and his agent Ben Dogra have said since Peterson's league mandated suspension was overturned and he again became eligible to don an NFL uniform and rejoin his Minnesota teammates.
Still, now that the 30-year-old Peterson is back in the Vikings fold, what can rightfully be expected for the once-explosive ballcarrier?
According to NFL.com's Albert Breer, quite a lot can be expected of the aging Peterson, in fact.
"Vikings offensive staff sees Peterson as being a 350-carry centerpiece, with three 4.4 WRs (Wallace, Wright, Johnson) creating space for 28," Breer tweeted.
350 carries would be quite a load, even for a pre-suspension Peterson, though it makes sense considering Minnesota offensive coordinator Norv Turner is known to favor a run-heavy scheme. In eight NFL seasons, Peterson has approached a 350-carry total twice, surpassing it only once, when he toted the ball 363 times way back in 2008.
Last year's leading rusher in the NFL, DeMarco Murray, carried the ball 392 times - and caught 57 balls to boot - for the Cowboys; a total almost any sane coach would look to significantly decrease moving forward, especially in this day and age of explosive offenses built on two-to-three-back rotations.
Peterson did tote the rock 348 times in 2012, en route to the best rushing total of his career - 2,097 yards - but it's difficult to envision him doing the same this late in his professional life.
Then again, he is Adrian Peterson - a superhuman athlete amongst men, a guy who took only nine months to return from an injury that takes most players a year or more to recover from and then posted the second-highest carry total of his career, en route to a personal-best 2,097 yards rushing.
If anyone can defy father time and remain a bruising offensive "centerpiece" well beyond the age at which many running backs simply fade into some form of football non-existence, it's Peterson.
Perhaps most importantly for Vikings fans and coaches though, Peterson's return carries importance well beyond padding the stats of his own Hall of Fame worthy career.
As Breer notes, the biggest benefactor from Peterson's triumphant (sort of) return to Minnesota, is young franchise quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.
Bridgewater, the Vikings second-round pick out of Louisville just last year, posted good, if not entirely great, numbers during his rookie year. More importantly though, he showed grit and toughness while helming a Vikings offense missing a legitimate threat out of the backfield - Mat Asiata and Jerick MicKinnon did their best to fill the mammoth hole left by Peterson's absence - and dealing with the simultaneous regression of Cordarrelle Patterson and declining interest of Greg Jennings.
Still, despite being forced to operate with a handful of young, unproven weapons like Charles Johnson and Jarius Wright, Bridgewater completed 259 balls for 2,919 yards, 14 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and an 85.2 quarterback rating.
He also added 47 carries for 209 yards and one touchdown.
With Peterson back onboard, Patterson reportedly working hard to regain his rookie year form and Jennings replaced by the speedy Mike Wallace, Bridgewater and thus the Vikings look to be in much better position offensively for 2015.
If Peterson can stay healthy, something he's rarely struggled to do despite his violent running style and the ACL injury outlier, not only will the Minnesota offense be more dynamic, it will take significant pressure off Bridgewater and, presumably, allow him to develop further into the franchise quarterback the Minnesota brass so clearly believe he can be.
