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Why the Washington Football Team isn’t missing Adrian Peterson

By Hirdesh Matta

ARLINGTON, TEXAS - DECEMBER 29: Adrian Peterson #26 of the Washington Football Team runs the ball against the Dallas Cowboys in the second half at AT&T Stadium on December 29, 2019 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
ARLINGTON, TEXAS - DECEMBER 29: Adrian Peterson #26 of the Washington Football Team runs the ball against the Dallas Cowboys in the second half at AT&T Stadium on December 29, 2019 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /
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LANDOVER, MD – DECEMBER 22: Adrian Peterson #26 of the Washington Football Team looks on before the game against the New York Giants at FedExField on December 22, 2019 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
LANDOVER, MD – DECEMBER 22: Adrian Peterson #26 of the Washington Football Team looks on before the game against the New York Giants at FedExField on December 22, 2019 in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images) /

The Case for Keeping Peterson

The case could be made to suggest the team should have kept Peterson instead of Peyton Barber, but that argument doesn’t hold much weight. Peterson was due a base salary of $2.25 million if he stayed on the Washington roster, while Barber is only making a base salary of $910,000, per Spotrac. Barber can also be cut next season with a dead cap hit of only $300,000.

Now, Barber only has 38 carries for Washington this season, and not surprisingly, he has underperformed averaging only 2.1 yard/carry. Now, could we expect AP to be happy with a similar workload when he has a tendency to not be a team player if he isn’t getting his carries? Probably not.

If the team did give him more playing time than Barber is getting, we would be taking away carries from Gibson and McKissic, both of who have been outperforming Peterson statistically this season and provide for more diverse play calls when they are on the field.

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