Season Soundtrack: Redemption Songs--Track 6 Results

I apologize for taking so long to write up the results of our 2012 Redemption Songs Track 6 challenge. Just when I got all the responses from the rest of the DN writers my family got socked with a major emergency and it has taken awhile to get back into the swing of things. So, without further ado...

Man, it seems like forever ago I issued the Track 6 challenge for our 2012 Season Soundtrack: Redemption Songs. This time around the challenge was to choose a song for Adrian Peterson's dominant return from reconstructive knee surgery. A lot of players now are coming back from terrible knee injuries like Peterson's, but to come back as quickly as he did and to look as good as he does...well, that's rare.

In 2012 Adrian Peterson has 420 yards on 96 attempts. Last Sunday against the Tennessee Titans Peterson said he tweaked his ankle on his first carry and didn't feel quite right the rest of the game. Despite planting on an ankle with a mild sprain Peterson averaged a season high of 5.2 yards per carry. Peterson didn't just return to football, he has stormed in and punished any defense that mistakenly thought he might not be back in top form.

I had a feeling we'd get a lot of rah-rah, tough-guy kind of songs for this challenge. And we did. We even got some selections from the DN writers. That's always fun because we try to balance modesty against thinking our song is the superior choice. However, this time the ridiculous pandering/cheating from one of our writers is fantastic. Move over Lance Armstrong, there's a new cheater in the house.

Kyle had one goal, to see his song, the theme from Terminator 2, win our coveted Burger King crown. Not only did he campaign that this was the best choice ever, but he also tried to submit votes for the other DN writers to guarantee a win. I've accused Kyle of writing via the Hemingway Method--drink heavily, then say, do, and write whatever comes to mind. This seemed like further proof of Kyle's Hemingway Method in action.

Ted agreed to Kyle's choice because he was pretty tipsy busy doing...something. Guess it was easier to just go with Kyle's song than scan through the list of song submissions for the contest. Kyle's tactic worked with one member of our staff, but the rest of us weren't having it.

Arif didn't feel that zen connection between any of the songs submitted and the challenge topic, but eventually went with Sioux1337's song "Come Back" by the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl always seems like a good idea to me.

If there is something that the DN staff universally loves besides the Minnesota Vikings, it's probably Monty Python. Probably. Eric chose rj-b's selection, a remix from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Knights Who Say Ni! Or, in our case, knee.

Chris had also submitted a couple songs to this contest, but he managed not to coerce us into choosing his songs. Don't tell the Packers fans, but he's an absolute sweetie. A sweetie who chose CCNorsemen's song "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie.

For my part, I was torn between the two selections from Thor82 and one from revenge4tjack. Thor82's choice of the intro from the television show The Six Million Dollar Man is fun, but he kind of renigged on it because it wasn't really a song. Well, this isn't really a serious contest, I'm sure we could have made it work. revenge4tjack submitted a song that ranks right up there for me in the guilty pleasure playlist, "Stronger" by Kanye West. And "that that don't kill me can only make me stronger" is basically the attitude Adrian Peterson projected through his entire rehab process. In the end, I decided to go with Thor82's other selection, "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC.

Now, since our choices are all over the place with no real agreement on a winner (I don't count Ted's booze-addled agreement with Kyle), I act as tie-breaker because...well, I'm the one writing the article.

Congratulations Thor82, you win the Track 6 challenge and the honor of our Burger King crown. I'm sure you'll wear it well.