During the match between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints, running back Adrian Peterson was caught by cameras visibly shouting at head coach Sean Payton on the sidelines. Payton turned his head back and appeared to say something back to Peterson, too.

While it wasn’t clear what exactly happened but the Twitter-verse was quick to assume that it was about Peterson being frustrated by the lack of touches and snaps he had until that point of the contest.

https://twitter.com/_MarcusD2_/status/907408230762078209

The Saints’ rushing was neutralized by Minnesota’s stringent defense with New Orleans coming up with just 60 yards on the ground. What’s worse for Peterson was that he was only able to get six carries for a measly 18 yards. Rookie Alvin Kamara even had more touches than Peterson with seven. Also, Peterson’s nine snaps played in the Vikings game was the fewest in his illustrious career so far.

Having said all of that, Peterson downplayed the incident with Payton, even telling reporters in the post-game interview that there was nothing hostile about it, as reported by Josh Katzenstein of NOLA.com.

“There's no conflict,” Peterson said. “Let's not try to spin it like it is. There's no conflict. I got a lot of respect for coach Payton and his offense. He's a great mind. We're going to learn from this (game).”

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Peterson didn’t have many specific details with regards to what he said to Payton but reveals that he merely advised the coach to let them run the ball.

“One thing I said to him was let's run this inside zone, and we came out and we ran it,” Peterson said.

This could really just be a familiar case of a superstar veteran unable to accept the fact that he's no longer the focal point of a team. At 32-years-old and after plenty of injuries, Peterson isn't the unstoppable running back that he used to be, thus perhaps Payton’s partly keeping the future Hall of Famer in the dog house.

The season is still long, however, and more touches may come Peterson’s way in the coming weeks.