Melvin Gordon, Adrian Peterson working on ball protection

Melvin Gordon and Adrian Peterson are working out together with the apparent goal of taking over the world.

Actually, the pair of NFL running backs are coming together to smooth over a shared weakness: fumbles.

Gordon, a second-year back with the San Diego Chargers, asked to train alongside the league's defending rushing title winner this offseason with a focus on protecting the football. Gordon fumbled six times in his rookie year.

"I talked to Adrian about it, and he said, 'The biggest thing about the lack of ball security is, it's a mental thing,'" Gordon said, ESPN's Ben Goessling reports. "You can do a lot of drills, but you can still go out there and mess up if you're not mentally focused on it. It's (having that reminder of), 'Someone's there. Someone's always there (trying to take it).'"

While it's never a bad idea to seek advice from the NFL's preeminent back, Peterson is a curious choice to consult on fumbles. The Minnesota Vikings' bell-cow has been plagued by turnovers his entire career. He fumbled seven times last season and lost a fumble in the fourth quarter of the Vikings' wild-card playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks.

But Peterson is working on a solution.

"When you've got people who are more focused on, 'OK, I kind of don't want to tackle him anyways; let's find another way to slow him down,' they are focused more on punching that ball out," the 31-year-old back said. "That's something I just have to realize and make sure I eliminate that."

Together, Gordon and Peterson worked on ball-protection drills with trainer James Cooper at O Athletik in Houston.

With training camps days away, we'll soon see if they'll enjoy the fruits of their labor.