Adrian Peterson Willing To Give Patriots A Discount?

Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald, citing a source close to free agent RB Adrian Peterson, reports that he would consider giving the Patriots a discount to sign with them, given that he’s earned a lot of money over his career.

Guregian mentions Peterson will likely have interest from a number of teams including the Vikings and there’s no guarantee that the Patriots will want to bring in an aging running back with an injury history.

As Guregian points out, New England typically doesn’t pay more than $2 million per year for running backs, so Peterson would likely have to be willing to leave a decent amount of money on the table to join the Patriots.

Over the weekend, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported that a number of notable running backs are drawing limited interest at the Combine including Peterson, Jamaal Charles and Latavius Murray.

According to Florio, Peterson “isn’t generating significant dollars” in the conversations that have taken place at the Combine and unless things change in the coming weeks. In fact, Florio believes Peterson’s best option could be to wait for an injury at running back. The benefit to this is that Peterson could skip the offseason program and possibly part of training camp.

However, if the offers remain limited, Florio believes Peterson may have to ask whether it’s even worth playing for such a low salary.

Peterson, 31, is a former first-round pick of the Vikings back in 2007. He was entering the final year of his three-year, $44 million contract that included $20 million guaranteed and was set to make a base salary of $11.75 million to go along with a $6 million roster bonus due on March 11.

In 2016, Peterson has rushed for 72 yards on 37 carries (1.9 YPC) to go along with three receptions for eight yards receiving and no touchdowns over the course of three games.

We have him featured in our Top 100 – 2017 Free Agents list.