Eleven days after emerging from his latest shredding of the Packers with an ankle injury, Washington running back Adrian Peterson practice.
Officially, he was a limited participant, four days before the team’s Week Five game against the Saints.
“He did a little bit today,” coach Jay Gruden told reporters. “He did good. He did fine. We did some individual [work] with him, got a couple of team reps and then we sent him in to get some more rehab, but he looked good. He wanted to cut a few times and did and is making progress.”
He’ll definitely want to play on Monday night, since he’ll be playing the Saints -- the team that signed him but didn’t use him much in 2017. Is coach Sean Payton surprised that Peterson is thriving in Washington?
“Man, I’m not and I say that in a very complimentary way,” Payton told reporters. “I think they do a great job in their run game and it’s one of the teams we’ll bet up each week. I’ve worked with Bill Callahan before. I think it’s been a perfect fit really. When he was here, we still saw it. We still saw everything through the offseason into the regular season. The challenge for us became just the amount of touches with the number of backs we had, but I think it’s a great match.”
Peterson has 236 rushing yards in three games, and the bye week came at a perfect time. The broader question for Peterson will be his ability to keep going week-in and week-out, given his bruising running style and age. We continue to not recommend betting against him.