Vikings coach Mike Zimmer has been saying good things about Cordarelle Patterson this offseason, lauding his work ethic and improved route-running.
The fourth-year receiver doesn’t want to hear about it.
“Good. Bad,” Patterson said. “It’s going to always be something. You can’t let the good things get to you because that’s when you get the big head.”
Patterson speaks from experience. He doesn’t deny that after he entered the NFL in 2013 as the No. 29 pick he didn’t always put in the effort he should have.
“Sometimes you can be here and you feel like you’ve got to be on the team,” Patterson said. “You feel like, ‘Yeah, I’m a first-round pick, I’m on the team.’ Things like that, sometimes they make you not work hard, they make you don’t want to do things, make you be lazy.”
The wake-up call, though, arrived with Zimmer’s arrival. After a solid rookie season in 2013, in which he caught 45 passes for 469 yards, Patterson lost his starting job midway through 2014, Zimmer’s first season as Vikings coach.
It got worse last year. While Patterson continued to excel on kickoff returns, leading the NFL in average for the second time in three years, he caught only two passes for 10 yards. In May, the Vikings passed on his contract option for 2017. He will become a free agent after the 2016 season.
“Sometimes players understand when they’re not playing, that in order to play, they have to do things this way or that way, and if they want to play, this is what you have to do,” Zimmer said. “And sometimes it just takes time to learn it.”
One of the knocks on Patterson has been an inability to run crisp routes. But Zimmer said Patterson made few mental errors in spring practices, “running the routes at the proper depth” and “lining up in the right spot.” The coach said Patterson must show continued improvement when players report for training camp July 28 in Mankato.
Patterson has plenty of work to do if he wants to win back a starting job. One receiver spot seems to belong to Stefon Diggs, who broke into the starting lineup last October as a rookie. On the other side, there is a traffic jam of contenders.
Jarius Wright ran with the first team in spring drills. In addition to Patterson, other contenders are first-round draft pick Laquon Treadwell and Charles Johnson, who replaced Patterson in the lineup in 2014 before losing his spot last year.
“Every guy wants to start,” Patterson said. “Nobody wants to ride the bench. I can’t say, ‘I want to be a starter’ because at the end of the day, if I work hard, I will be a starter. If I keep doing what I’m supposed to do, I’ll be a starter.”
Between now and training camp, Patterson plans to work out for a week or two in Florida with Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. He also might return to San Francisco for additional conditioning work with Frank Matrisciano, who is known as “Hell’s Trainer” and has worked with Patterson before.
“People say, ‘It’s your make or break year,’ ” Patterson said. “I’ve just got to go out and do what I’m supposed to. It’s a big year for me. … We all know what I can do, and I’ve just got to show the coaches I can be there when I need to be, and be on time, be in the right place, the right depth on routes catching the ball. If I do all those things, I feel like things will work out well.”
