Five or eight years from now, when Adrian Peterson retires from the National Football League, he may be considered the greatest running back in the history of football. What he did this past year is ridiculous: after tearing his ACL in December 2011, he came back to have the second-best statistical season for a running back ever. The point is: he’s one of the greatest American athletes ever. He’s also a gamer, and in this interview with Forbes, confesses his deep admiration for, you guessed it, e-athletes:

As someone who is a professional athlete, what are your thoughts about this whole evolution that we’re seeing with eSports and pros who play video games like League of Legends, Starcraft II and Call of Duty competitively in tournaments like Major League Gaming and make a career of it?

It’s cool, man. It gives a lot of the gamers and a lot of the guys that just love playing the games that wouldn’t have opportunities themselves…it gives those guys the opportunity to see these pro guys play. It’s just like, “Wow, how did this guy get this amount of kills and in that amount of time.”  To be able to see the skillset that they have, playing these games, is great. It’s exciting and it’s something different. It’s not football, it’s not basketball, it’s not soccer. It’s just gaming. If somebody does his best in all the other sports, their players are the world’s best at some of these games. So they have opportunities to see those guys and cheer them on.