Minnesota Vikings: Time to start looking to trade Cordarrelle Patterson
Minnesota Vikings General Manager Rick Spielman is in trading mode after trading a starting linebacker for the football equivalent of peanuts on Tuesday. While Spielman is playing trades, let’s break down the doors and pull off the big one: it’s time to deal Cordarrelle Patterson.
Apparently the Vikings have been asking around already:
The problem is that Patterson hasn’t done anything for the Vikings so far this season. Patterson’s role has been reduced to kick returner and in today’s NFL that means he might touch the ball twice a game or so with kickers just sailing the ball throughout the end zone.
Seemingly every week Patterson slips a notch down the depth chart at receiver, too. If you are counting on your hands how many receivers on the Vikings alone you’d rather have over Patterson, well, Patterson is now probably relegated to the second hand.
Mike Wallace, Charles Johnson, Adam Thielen, Jarius Wright and Stefon Diggs all look like they deserve to be on the field before Patterson at this point. Throw in Kyle Rudolph and the integration of Adrian Peterson into the running game, Patterson is soon really, really low as an option.
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The frustrating thing is that Patterson is a great athlete, but it seems that it just isn’t there for Patterson upstairs. It’s a common complaint about Patterson, but it’s huge. He can’t run routes. It makes a quarterback’s job a million times tougher if they have no clue what their receiver is doing.
The issue is that if we here on the internet and on sports talk radio know this about Patterson, the whole NFL knows, too. Patterson probably doesn’t give the Vikings a lot back in return, but it’s worth exploring. Heaven knows that there is a head coach somewhere in the NFL that thinks they can fix Cordarrelle Patterson.
It’s come to the point where Patterson doesn’t really deserve to be active on Sundays now. That’s how far he’s fallen.
If you can get a draft pick or something for him, it’s time to pull the trigger. It’s just going to drive us nuts if he stays on this team and keeps doing nothing. It sucks to have an athletic beast be shipped away, but sometimes you just have to let go of what you love.
Set him free, Rick. Set him free.
Next: Competition time for Blair Walsh