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Adrian Peterson suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the Vikings’ 33-26 win over the Redskins.
The released a statement late Saturday night confirming the injury and said that coach Leslie Frazier would have more information at a news conference scheduled for 1:30 p.m. ET on Monday.
Peterson also has a torn medial collateral ligament – according to multiple reports.
Peterson will likely miss the start of the 2012 season and the surgery may not occur for several weeks – according to 1500ESPN.com.
The Vikings had called the injury a sprain immediately after the game.
Typical of the Vikings’ fortunes this season, quarterback Christian Ponder suffered a concussion while being sacked by London Fletcher and Adam Carriker on the next play.
Ponder stayed in for one more snap, throwing incomplete on third down, before leaving the game for good. Peterson was in his second game back from a high left ankle sprain when his season ended with safety DeJon Gomes collapsing Peterson’s left knee gruesomely with a direct blow from the outside with 14 minutes and 40 seconds left in the third quarter.
Players from both teams came up to Peterson as he was being helped off the field. He wasn’t able to put any weight on the leg and was carted to the locker room. With 970 yards rushing, including 38 in Saturday’s game, Peterson will fall short of 1.000 yards rushing for the first time in his five-year career. He missed three games because of the ankle sprain.
Peterson’s replacement is Toby Gerhart, the team’s second-round pick from last year. He’s powerful, runs with balance and determination and catches the ball well. On the drive after Peterson’s injury, Gerhart broke loose for a 67-yard gain, the team’s longest of the season.

Adrian Peterson.

So, with all this talk of ACLs and MCLs and all these other CLs, we thought it might be helpful to give you a little bit of an idea of exactly what happened to Adrian Peterson’s knee. Here’s a helpful video to help you sort of visualize the whole thing.
What happened with Adrian Peterson is that he tore the anterior cruciate ligament – ACL – and the medial collateral ligament – MCL – in his left knee.
The ACL is important because it keeps the knee from being pushed too far forward in relation to the femur, and it is generally injured by a twisting or bending of the knee, much like it was in Peterson’s case.
The MCL keeps the knee from being bent open by too much force on the side of the knee.
Peterson has torn two of the four main ligaments that hold the knee together. The lateral collateral ligament – LCL – and the posterior cruciate ligament – PCL – are still intact, according to the reports we’ve gotten so far.
Hopefully this helps you to understand exactly what happened with Adrian Peterson’s left knee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu4h2DZQxAI

Out for the game – and possibly much longer – with a knee injury that looked and felt serious, Adrian Peterson was on his way back from the X-ray room in the depths of the stadium when he looked at a television monitor.
“I see Toby break up the sideline” – Peterson said. “So, `Go, Toby, go.”‘
What else could happen to the Minnesota Vikings in one of the worst seasons in franchise history? How about losing Peterson to a direct hit on the left knee and Christian Ponder to a possible concussion on back-to-back plays to start the second half? It just didn’t seem fair.
But here’s a twist – They won the game. Toby Gerhart and Joe Webb answered the call, leading Saturday’s 33-26 victory over the Washington Redskins, breaking a six-game losing streak that helped make up for the fact that their best player was standing on crutches in the locker room.
“I can enjoy my Christmas now” – coach Leslie Frazier said.
Gerhart scampered for a 67-yard run – the play Peterson saw on TV – to start Minnesota’s next series after the Peterson-Ponder injuries and finished with 109 yards on 11 carries. Webb again made a case to be a starting quarterback by throwing for two touchdowns and running for another as the Vikings (3-12) kept alive their hopes to not finish with the worst record in team history. A win next week against Chicago would put them ahead of the dubious 1984 Minnesota team that went 3-13.
Asked if it’s time to give the option-running Webb a look at the No. 1 job, Frazier didn’t hesitate.
“Some of the things he does, and what it does to the rest of our team, you can’t ignore” – Frazier said. “So it’s something we’re going to have a real hard look at as we go forward. He definitely lifts our team.”
He might get the start next week, at least, because of Ponder’s injury, but Webb surely was an inspiring presence Saturday, completing 4 of 5 passes for 84 yards and rushing five times for 34 yards. His 9-yard touchdown run came on the option, and he put a perfect 17-yard scoring pass into the arms of rookie tight end Kyle Rudolph, a touchdown appropriate for Christmas Eve, to give the Vikings a 23-20 lead late in the third quarter.
“When they bring in a weapon like that” – Redskins linebacker Perry Riley said of Webb, “not a secret weapon – we’d seen him on tape and we had a feeling – but it’s hard to prepare fully on a short week for two quarterbacks. … It’s hard to change it mid-stream like that.”