With the departures of running back Dion Lewis and wide receiver Danny Amendola, it made sense for the New England Patriots to go out and try to find a replacement kick returner. They did so, in the form of Cordarrelle Patterson.
Can Cordarrelle Patterson be more than just a kick returner with the Patriots?
The dynamic kick returner is still trying to make his mark as a receiver, going into his sixth season and third NFL team.
Photo by Don Feria/Getty Images
New England sent a fifth-round pick (159th overall) and acquired both Patterson and a sixth-round pick (210th overall) from the Oakland Raiders, Patterson’s second team in the NFL. Patterson was selected by the Minnesota Vikings with the 29th overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, in the spot the Patriots originally occupied but traded out of.
Over the years, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been complimentary of Patterson, calling him “explosive” and “dangerous with the ball in his hands.” In his rookie season, he became the first player in NFL history to have a kickoff return of 100-plus yards, touchdown reception of 75-plus yards, and a rushing touchdown of 50-plus yards in the same season.
Patterson has mostly disappointed as a first-round wide receiver, however. He has never even broken 500 receiving yards in a season. Still, the two-time Pro Bowler and All-Pro player has consistently been one of the best returners in the league,
But can he be more than that with the Patriots, a team known for getting the most out of its players? Let’s start with the known, and then we’ll get to the unknown.
His return ability has been his greatest asset
The NFL moving touchbacks to the 25-yard line has made kick returns more scarce, but Patterson’s value is still plenty evident. He has 153 career kick returns for 4,613 yards and five touchdowns in his career. Three of those touchdowns were over 100 yards, with his longest being an NFL record 109 yards, from his rookie season in 2013.
That was also his best season returning. He totaled 43 returns for 1,393 yards and two touchdowns. He holds several Vikings’ franchise records, including most kickoff return yards in a season, highest kick return average in a season (32.4 in 2013), and longest play period (the 109-yard return).
Last season with the Raiders, he had just 19 kick returns, but he was still productive, putting up 538 yards, an average of 28.3 yards per return.
He’s also versatile and can contribute in other ways. Patterson has recorded six rushing touchdowns in his career. In 2014, he ran for 102 yards against the Rams, the most ever by a wide receiver in a single game.
But what about Patterson as a receiver?
His time at receiver has been spotty, however. He’s had some big plays — his combination of size and speed is frankly ridiculous — but has consistently been unable to run clean routes or beat cornerbacks by anything other than said speed. Despite not missing a game over the course of his career, Patterson’s highest total receiving yards in a single season was the 469 he registered as a rookie.
He then went down to 384 in 2014 and to just 10 yards in 2015. That season, he was essentially phased out of the Vikings’ offensive plans entirely, with just two targets and two rushing attempts all year. He continued to be a successful returner, though, with 1,019 return yards and two touchdowns.
Patterson picked up 452 receiving yards in his final year with the Vikings, but just 309 receiving yards in his only season with Oakland.
What’s Patterson’s ceiling?
The hope for Patterson is he can follow a similar path to Ted Ginn Jr. Ginn was a first-round wide receiver with a surplus of speed who excelled as a kick returner, but he had significant problems with drops and route-running. It took him several teams until he finally started to show some real progress as a receiver.
Ginn fell short with the Dolphins, aside from his 790-yard 2008 campaign in his second year. He underperformed with the San Francisco 49ers and then improved slightly with the Carolina Panthers, took a step back with the Arizona Cardinals, and went back to the Panthers, where he posted two consecutive seasons of 700-plus receiving yards. In 2017, he joined the New Orleans Saints and put together arguably his most successful season yet: 787 receiving yards, four touchdown receptions, and career-high 75.7 percent catch rate, all at age 32.
Patterson, 27, is joining his third team. His ceiling isn’t necessarily “Ted Ginn Jr. production” but it’s a nice target, at least initially, for a Patriots team that lost Amendola and has the top quarterback in the NFL, Tom Brady.
With the changing return game in the NFL, Patterson’s best shot of prolonging his NFL career (and earning a lot more money) is simple: grow as a receiver. The Patriots are perhaps the most consistent team in the NFL, with some of the best coaching and players in the NFL.
Patterson won’t be the top receiving option in New England, not with Brandin Cooks, Rob Gronkowski, and Julian Edelman around. But he could help fill the void left by Amendola and the Patriots could find creative ways to use him on offense.
If the Patriots try to feature Patterson in their passing attack, it will be his greatest chance yet to make it as a pass catcher.
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