It’s only Week 3 of the 2018 preseason and the Washington Redskins have already suffered an infestation of the injury bug. Not only is second-round draft pick, RB Derrius Guice, gone for the season (ACL), last week RBs Samaje Perine and Byron Marshall were hurt during the game against the New York Jets. Undrafted college free agent, Martez Carter, was waived, designated injured.
The team needed some backup at the running back position. Chris Thompson is better but still returning from a significant injury and Rob Kelley is competing for a job as the No. 1 back. Kapri Bibbs will ultimately compete with Marshall to be Thompson’s backup.
Enter Adrian Peterson, who the Redskins signed to a one-year $1,015,000 deal yesterday.
“Yea, we’re short,” Gruden said. “We’ve been going to practice the last couple days with only three backs and one of them is Chris [Thompson] and Chris probably won’t play a whole lot in the preseason. We needed to get some people in here. And Adrian was available and came to work out. [He] looked in great shape and we signed him and De’Veon Smith.”
How much the future Hall-of-Famer has left in the tank is yet to be determined but the Burgundy and Gold’s head coach sure thinks he can do the job based on the workout he gave Washington before they signed him.
Peterson starting as the Redskins bell-cow RB is not a given just because he is a veteran and a lock for the Hall of Fame. He is going to have to compete for the job. But the Gruden likes everything he knows about the Oklahoma alum so far. He was happy with the way he practiced for the first time and, even more so, with his initial workout. Other RBs that came to work out were not in shape. But Peterson absolutely appeared ready to go and both Gruden and the rest of the staff took notice.
Even Doug Williams (Senior Vice President of Player Personnel) said that he feels like Peterson has some ‘fuel left in the tank.’
Doug Williams also said that the workout AP gave the team had showed he has a lot of ‘fuel left in his tank’ #Redskins pic.twitter.com/Fpl1xXf7X5
— Diane Chesebrough (@DiChesebrough) August 21, 2018
“At the workout he proved to us that he’s in great physical condition,” Gruden said finally. “He’s actually a physical freak if you want to say that. I mean, like I said, before the start of the workout [RBs coach] Randy [Jordan] put him through till the end of the workout, he didn’t even break a sweat hardly. He’s in great shape… explosive… and that’s really what sold us. Sometimes these backs come in for workouts and you can tell they haven’t been doing anything and they’re out of shape. The backs we had in here… they were huffing and puffing, keeling over. He was standing straight up. He could have gone for another two hours so that played mostly into it, his great physical condition.”
Peterson will see some touches Friday in the Redskins third preseason game against the Denver Broncos if the coaches can get him up to speed quickly enough. According to most of the staff, he’s certainly ready physically.