Analysis: Cordarrelle Patterson is a special teams ace who could provide boost for Patriots

In the New England system, Cordarrelle Patterson projects as a part-time, Swiss-army knife of an offensive skill position player, but someone who could have a sizable impact as a kick returner.

Patterson, who turned 27 on Saturday, came into the league in 2013 as a first-round pick after a college career that saw spend two years Hutchinson Community College before a season at Tennessee. When it came to the draft, there was a whole backstory about him and whether or not he was destined to be a Patriot, and later on, operated under the belief that Bill Belichick disrespected him after a draft weekend trade. Belichick has never spoken badly of Patterson, at least not publicly. In 2014 before the regular-season opener a September game against the Vikings, Belichick had nothing but good things to say about the wideout.

“Patterson is obviously an explosive guy,” Belichick said of the 6-foot-2, 216-pounder. “You see that in the return game. He’s a deep threat. He’s dangerous with the ball in his hands, whether you hand it to him or throw it to him on a short pass. He’s a dangerous catch-and-run guy. He’s also a vertical guy.”

Offensively, Patterson had an up-and-down career with Minnesota, topping out in his final year with the Vikings (2016) when he had 52 catches on 70 targets for 453 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Last year in Oakland, he didn’t get the ball a lot — he played 42 percent of the snaps, and was targeted just 42 times, an average of 2.6 times per game. He played in all 16 games, but only started two, and was sixth on the team in receptions with 31. When he did get the ball last year, it was basically a series of quick outs, either on a wide receiver screen pass or a quick comebacker. (The screen-pass part of his game is pretty strong, but I wonder how much of that was because he was working behind an extraordinary offensive line last year. I also wonder how much they’d be inclined to run it here, as screens were something the Patriots struggled to execute at times last season.)









Don't get me wrong. There's nothing necessarily bad with any of this. It's just to create a realistic series of expectations when it comes to him as a pass catcher at this stage of his career. That stuff is his bread-and-butter. The good thing is that he rarely drops any of those chances -- since the start of the 2016 season, only two wide receivers have 80 or more catches and a catch rate of 73 percent or better in the regular season. Patterson and some guy named Danny Amendola.

There’s also a bit of a “gadgety” element to his game in that he can line up in multiple spots and you can at least ask him to do some different things. He’s sort of a Percy Harvin-type in that regard. On one three-play sequence last season against the Giants, he ran a sweep, he caught a 7-yard pass from Derek Carr, and followed that up with a play where he motioned into the backfield and took a handoff on a draw. Last year, he had 13 carries and finished with 121 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Basically, last year with the Raiders, the goal was to simply get him in space and see what might happen. Sometimes, he was able to break one, like here.



He certainly doesn’t run like a receiver — I say that with nothing but respect. There's no hesitation in his game as a ball-carrier. He’s a bigger, more physical type who doesn’t shy from contact between the tackles. For a guy who doesn’t handle the ball all that often, he would appear to have some ball security issues (five fumbles in the last two years), but it’s not an overwhelming drawback to his game.



The good news? Patterson is as good a returner as they come. He’s the only guy in the league who has five kick returns for touchdowns since the start of the 2013 season. He’s the only kick returner who has averaged 30 yards per return since 2013 (minimum 20 attempts). He led the league in yards per return three of the last five seasons, topping out at an amazing 32.4 yards per return in 2013. He set the league record with a 109-yard return in 2013. He's good.

Here are a few of his returns from 2017 — he didn’t have a kick return for a touchdown, but still averaged a whopping 28.3 yards per return on 19 chances. He possesses great field vision, he’s patient enough to let blocks develop and is still strong enough to break tackles.







With the departure of Dion Lewis, Patterson now easily the best and most experienced kick returner on the roster. (For what it’s worth, he has no background as a punt returner at the NFL level.)

Ultimately, Patterson has shown himself to be occasionally useful when it comes to finding ways to put unique stress on an opposing defense. He’s the first NFL player to have a 100-yard kickoff return touchdown, a 75-yard touchdown catch, and a 50-yard rushing touchdown in the same season (2013). If he makes the team (which is no guarantee given his contract), I’d expect a few plays over the course of the season where he’s the center of a unique package. But barring injury, don’t look for him to get significant playing time ahead of the likes of Julian Edelman, Chris Hogan or Brandin Cooks. (We haven’t even mentioned the likes of Kenny Britt, Malcolm Mitchell or Phillip Dorsett.)

Special teams, however, could be a different story altogether. The last receiver I can remember who had these same skills but was on the team more for his kick returning ability than anything -- a luxury item in many ways -- was Bethel Johnson, and that was more than a decade ago. (Belichick became so exasperated with the inconsistent Johnson he gave him away to the Saints, who cut him a few months later.) This time around, Patterson’s presence could be a litmus test when it comes to measuring how much Belichick values a roster spot. Like he did with Johnson, would he simply give one over to a guy who will do little more than return kicks? When it comes to Patterson, we could find out the answer to that question sooner rather than later.