Adrian Peterson's 8-yard touchdown run, started by a shoulder-shake to fake Brian Urlacher at the line of scrimmage, sent the Minnesota Vikings to their fifth straight victory 20-13 over the Chicago Bears on Monday.
The Vikings (8-6) stayed in control of the National Football Conference's last wild-card spot, despite four turnovers and a missed extra point. Tarvaris Jackson threw three interceptions, his first bad game in more than one month.
Peterson finished with two touchdowns and 78 yards on 20 carries, just enough to keep Minnesota in front of New Orleans (7-7) and Washington (7-7) in the conference race.
Coming off the self-declared worst game of his career, just 3 yards on 14 carries against the San Francisco 49ers, Peterson had more trouble finding room to run for the better part of three quarters.
But he came through when it counted, plunging through the line for a yard out to pull Minnesota within 13-12 before a low snap by Cullen Loeffler preceded a missed extra point by Ryan Longwell.
Then in the fourth quarter, with quarterback Tarvaris Jackson sidelined temporarily by a cramp in his calf muscle, Peterson added another clip to his rookie highlight video.
On third-and-goal, after brushing backup Brooks Bollinger during a bad handoff, Peterson stutter-stepped to freeze Urlacher before darting left and scurrying over the goal line. Urlacher just shook his head, while Peterson hammed it up with teammates in the end zone.
Bollinger's dive forward on a draw play gave the Vikings the 2-point conversion and a 20-13 lead with 10:56 left, plenty of time for Chicago to come back.
Kyle Orton, though, didn't have it in him. In his first start in two years, the Bears quarterback avoided the costly turnovers that Jackson was guilty of, but way too many of his throws were off target. Orton completed 22 of 36 passes for 184 yards, and his long pass to the end zone to Bernard Berrian just after the two-minute warning was intercepted by Darren Sharper to seal it.
The throw that hurt Orton the most came near the end of the third quarter, on fourth-and-1 at the Minnesota 35. On a curious call, Orton lofted a swing pass to fullback Jason McKie that sailed over his head. After the exchange, Peterson got going and led the drive for the winning score.
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