If Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson is going to garner some significant snaps for an offense many are suddenly viewing as potentially postseason-worthy thanks to Adrian Peterson's return to the fold, Mike Wallace's addition in free agency, the continuation of Teddy Bridgewater's development and Charles Johnson's expected growth, he'll have to satisfy one clear mandate from his head coach, Mike Zimmer - become more consistent. From the sounds of things, Patterson's working, but he may not be quite to the level Zimmer needs at the outset of Vikings training camp.
"Cordarrelle is on a good track right now, OK? Now, can he sustain? Can he continue to sustain what he's doing? Because like today, I thought he had a good day," Zimmer said, via USA Today. "In OTAs, I thought he improved. He'll have really good days, and then he'll have some not-so-good days. Really, I think what he needs to do is just the consistency every single day and the consistency in studying, the consistency in getting extra help that he needs if he needs it, running the routes the same all the time and understanding that there's a lot of great athletes that play professional sports, and there's a lot of great athletes that don't make it in professional sports because they don't have the other intangibles. To me, the biggest thing with him is that: Does he want to be 'Flash' or does he want to be a great receiver? I'm not trying to dog him or anything, but that's really what it is."
Zimmer and the team actually set this mandate for Patterson at the end of last year - a year which proved ultimately disappointing after his breakout rookie year. The Vikings coaching staff expected the versatile Patterson to improve on his 45 receptions, 469 receiving yards, four touchdown receptions and 158 yards and three touchdowns rushing, amassed, along with 1,393 return yards and two kickoff return touchdowns, during an ultra-promising 2013.
Patterson fell well short of those final stats in every single category and eventually lost playing time to the likes of Johnson, Jarius Wright and Adam Thielen in 2014. Talk even emerged ahead of the 2015 NFL Draft that the team would consider moving him for the right kind of package, though, of course, nothing ultimately came of it. As such, Zimmer made it clear that Patterson needed to reassess his approach to the game and just what his goals were for his NFL future this offseason if he was going to earn his snaps going forward.
While it sounds like Patterson hasn't yet reached the point Zimmer was hoping for, it seems he's at the very least hard at work trying to improve heading into NFL Year Three.
"I just want to let my game speak for itself," Patterson said earlier this offseason. "I just focused on the little things that really matter and I hope this year will be way better than last year and I hope I can continue just to grow and get better."
