Thompson's workload continued to increase during the team's stay in Richmond, Va., in August but the need to have him on the field in preseason hasn't been particularly pressing. Considering the injuries the Redskins sustained last year, head coach Jay Gruden has made sure to make health a priority before the season starts.

How that manifests in Week 1 isn't exactly a sure thing. The Redskins would like to use Thompson in the same way they did last year when he broke off some career games, but they also know it will take a little more time than usual for him to feel fully adjusted to an offense led by Alex Smith and find his feet under him for an entire game.

"We have a lot of different packages and we just have to limit the packages and try to figure out the best way to get our best players on the field," Gruden said. "He could see anywhere between five snaps and 90 snaps. Right now, it just depends on how we feel and how he feels on game day. He's such a great weapon for us, not only in the passing game, catching routes, but he's great in pass protection and he's also a very good runner as we all know. So, temptation will be there to play him a lot, but we also have Rob [Kelley], Samaje [Perine], Adrian [Peterson] that can also take some of the work off of him."