Fantasy Football Player Notes

The draft capital the Lions spent on Swift suggested that he'd take the lion's share of the running back touches in Detroit even with the presence of Adrian Peterson. But Swift has battled injury and missed two weeks of practice heading into the season, and word is that the Detroit coaching staff preferred a committee approach to the backfield. With the Lions now signing Adrian Peterson, it's hard to see Swift getting a big workload early on even if he is healthy. He'll likely eventually be the back you want to roster in Detroit and should certainly be drafted as a low-end Flex play, but be prepared to ride with other options for the first several weeks of the season.

Poor Johnson cannot catch a break. After battling injuries throughout his young career, the Lions drafted D'Andre Swift this offseason, which put Johnson as only borderline relevant in fantasy circles. With Swift battling injury as the Lions approached the season, however, it looked like Johnson would at least have an impact role early in the year, with the chance to carve out a larger role even when Swift was healthy. But now, with the Lions signing Adrian Peterson, Johnson again has impediments to fantasy-relevance. Johnson is talented and could succeed in the right situation, but given all the roadblocks in front of him, he's best left as a bench stash in deeper leagues.

Peterson signed with the Lions shortly after being released by the Redskins. Despite his advancing age, Peterson is coming up off two productive seasons with Washington and likely still has a little gas left in the tank. His role is entirely unclear, however, as both Kerryon Johnson and D'Andre Swift will factor in, and Ty Johnson and Bo Scarbrough are still on the roster. Peterson will likely be usable on occasion in fantasy but there's little reason to draft him in anything other than a bench piece.