2018 Fantasy Football Draft Prep: Where should you rank Adrian Peterson in Washington?

It’s a big-name move, but will Washington's signing of Adrian Peterson have big Fantasy ramifications? You should be skeptical.

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In the wake of Derrius Guice's season-ending knee injury, there's an opportunity for someone in the Washington Redskins' backfield to step up and be a Fantasy contributor. Adrian Peterson is going to get a chance to do just that, after reportedly agreeing to join the team Monday afternoon.

Is this the kind of move Fantasy owners should care about?

It's hard to answer in the affirmative on this one, unfortunately. Washington isn't necessarily the worst place in the league for a running back to end up, but it's not a great one either. The Redskins ranked 20th in rush attempts as a team last season, and were 16th in total scoring. There's opportunity here, but it's not like Peterson has landed in some incredible opportunity.

Still, someone could end up with 200 carries or something close to that in Washington. Samaje Perine got to 175 last season despite starting just eight games, while Rob Kelley and Matt Jones combined for 267 while splitting time as started in 2016.  With Guice out, there's an opportunity here, to be certain.

It's just hard to get excited about anyone in this backfield, Peterson included. According to Sports Info Solutions, between Perine, Kelley and Peterson in 2017, only Peterson was above the median in yards per carry after contact among running backs in 2017, and even he was at a pretty pedestrian 2.6 yards per carry. Perine was at 2.4 and Kelley was at 2.4. Additionally, Perine and Kelley both posted below-average broken-tackle rates; Peterson at least ranked 14th in this metric, ahead of the likes of Melvin Gordon, Todd Gurley and Mark Ingram, among others. He was, if nothing else, still tough to bring down last season.

And, it's worth noting, Peterson did show some signs of life in 2017, picking up a pair of 100-yard performances after being traded to the Cardinals. Still, outside of those two games, he averaged below 2.0 yards per carry in three of four contests, and was at 3.5 in his Cardinals' stint overall. Not great.

In fact, since the start of 2016, Peterson has run the ball 193 times over 13 games, for just 601 yards — an ugly 3.1 yards per attempt average. Washington running backs averaged 1.34 yards per carry before contact last season, the seventh-lowest rate in football, so Peterson isn't likely to get a ton of help in that regard.

It's not really a great scheme fit, either. Peterson famously doesn't have much history or success when running out of the shotgun, something Washington did about 30 percent of the time last season. Even if he does make the roster,  Peterson is fighting for just early downs work.

And that gets to the problem with Washington's backfield, especially in the aftermath of Guice's injury. The most talented back on the roster right now is probably Chris Thompson, but he's coming off an injury of his own and isn't well suited to work as an every-down back even if he was healthy. He'll get a handful of carries every week, but he has just two games with 15 touches in his entire career. He should dominate the passing down's work, but not much more.

So, Peterson, Perine and Kelley are all competing for a well-defined role, but one with a pretty low ceiling. There will be about 300 carries to go around this season, more or less, and it wouldn't be a surprise if all three got a shot to be the early-down back. And it wouldn't be a surprise if all three are ineffective in that role.

In the wake of this news, I think you move Perine and Kelley down your draft board, which is a tough look for them, since neither was likely to be selected until the deep reserve rounds on Draft Day even before this. If you want to move Peterson ahead of both, go for it. If you think Perine or Kelley is the answer, that's fine, too.

Just know, none of them should on your team until you have at least 10 other players on there. There just isn't enough upside in this backfield to justify anything more than a late-round pick. 

So what sleepers should you snatch in your Fantasy Football draft? And which huge running backs do you need to jump all over? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy Football cheat sheets from the model that called Alvin Kamara's huge breakout last season and find out.