The former Minnesota Vikings running back has agreed to a deal to join the Washington Redskins’ offensive backfield for the 2018 NFL season.
As a member of the Minnesota Vikings, Adrian Peterson was borderline unstoppable. But since his departure from the Vikings last year, Peterson has struggled to find his fit elsewhere.
He began the 2017 season with the New Orleans Saints, who then traded him just four games into the year after they were getting tired of Peterson staring down head coach Sean Payton for not giving him the ball enough.
The team the Saints sent the running back to was the Arizona Cardinals. With the Cardinals, Peterson immediately burst out of the gates as he gained at least 130 rushing yards in two of his first three games with his new team.
Minnesota Vikings
However, any excitement surrounding Peterson in Arizona was short-lived as he only managed to rack up a total of 134 yards on the ground during his next three appearances and eventually ended up missing the remainder of the season with a neck injury.
Peterson’s 2017 season was over after just 10 games and he finished with just 529 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 156 carries.
Despite his injury and lack of production last year, Peterson had no intention of retiring this offseason. The 33-year-old even believes that he can still be the best running back in the NFL.
His confidence in himself wasn’t enough to draw interest from any teams in the league this offseason though. Peterson remained unsigned as NFL training camps began a few weeks ago and it looked like his window to get back into the league had pretty much closed.
That was until the Washington Redskins recently called Peterson to come in and meet with them about a possible role with the team this season.
With their offensive backfield already looking like an episode of The Walking Dead just two weeks into the preseason, the Redskins were badly in need of some help at running back.
So Peterson met with Washington on Monday and it was announced later in the day that the team and the former Vikings running back had agreed to a deal for the 2018 season.
How long will his stint with the Redskins last? Who knows, but based on Peterson’s production during his last two years, don’t expect him to be anything close the player he was during the middle of his career in Minnesota when he actually was thought of as the best running back in the NFL.