After Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden had some tough comments about making Adrian Peterson a healthy scratch for Week 1, he seems to have changed his tune a little bit now that he knows he is going to have to count on Peterson.

Gruden said he made Peterson a healthy scratch last week because he needed the extra guy on special teams, but admits it was a tough decision.

“It’s not easy,” Gruden said of the call, via J.P. Finlay of NBCSportsWashington.com. “Adrian was on a couple of teams before we got him. It’s hard sometimes to dress two backs on first down, two first down backs. You have to have guys who different things. You have to have a third-down back. Sometimes it’s Chris Thompson, somebody else got to play third down. Somebody has to help on special teams. It’s hard to get everybody up on a 46-man roster. We just chose to dress [Wendell] Smallwood for a special teams sake and only dress three running backs, which is something we’ve done since I’ve been here pretty much.”

Redskins running back Derrius Guice is dealing with a meniscus injury that will cause him to miss multiple games, which means not only will Peterson be active, he will be playing a big role in the team's offense for the coming weeks.

“I’m very comfortable,” he said. “[Guice and Peterson] are 1 and 1a to me. They’re the same position. If something happens and Derrius can’t go, we’re happy to play AP and not even bat an eye.”

Thompson and Peterson are going to be getting a lot of reps going forward and it will start on Sunday with the Redskins playing the Dallas Cowboys.