Philadelphia Eagles won’t face Adrian Peterson in NFL Week 1

The Philadelphia Eagles will face the Washington Redskins for NFL Week 1, but the visitors will not have one of their key offensive players.

For NFL Week 1, the Philadelphia Eagles will host a familiar opponent in the Washington Redskins. As of late, the Eagles have done an excellent job taking care of Washington, as they won the last four-straight matchups. Considering that Eagles head coach Doug Pederson is undefeated on opening day, there’s a good chance the Eagles make it five straight on Sunday.

Philly got healthy at the right time. Therefore, they will have pretty much all key players available on Sunday. Washington, on the other hand, they will be missing quite a few guys. For starters, their top offensive lineman Trent Williams continues his holdout, so he won’t be playing.

Then, the Redskins will be missing their starting tight end Jordan Reed, who’s dealing with a concussion. Meanwhile, their number wideout is also fighting through a quad injury and could be limited. Basically, the Redskins have their hands full with injuries. However, it looks like they will have a key player out, who doesn’t happen to be dealing with any injury though.

Adrian Peterson a healthy scratch?

This week, the Redskins want to unleash their young running back, Derrius Guice. Also, they seem to want to play former Philadelphia Eagles running back Wendell Smallwood too. And let’s not forget, they still have Chris Thompson. It looked like a for a moment, the Skins’ would be playing with a committee that’s similar to the Eagles,’ but that might not be the case.

Apparently, veteran running back Adrian Peterson will be a healthy scratch for the Redskins this week. It’s quite a shocking turn of events, but that’s pretty good news for the Eagles. Peterson didn’t particularly run all over the Eagles defense last season, but he did rip off a long touchdown run, which added to his 98 yard total back against the Eagles in early December.

Peterson would’ve offered a good test for the Eagles this week, but now it looks like they will deal with a ton of Guice on Sunday, according to Jay Gruden. “We feel like he can be a first, second and even a third-down back, I think the offense, carries wise, will probably go through him, pretty much.” That’s what Gruden had to say on Guice this week.

The Eagles run defense most likely would’ve looked solid this week regardless of who was taking a bulk of the carries. But with Peterson ruled out as a healthy scratch, the afternoon definitely becomes a lot easier as they have one less proven player to worry about.