By: Brandon Silva
One of the most interesting, and somewhat ridiculous, storylines of this season has been the breakout of the 9th year veteran Cordarrelle Patterson. For those of you that drafted Patterson, almost nobody, your investment has paid off better than ever imaginable. In many leagues, it seemed like he was claimed or picked up after his week 2 performance against Tampa Bay where he had 23.9 fantasy points and scored both on the ground and through the air. This obviously had to frustrate anybody who drafted Mike Davis as a late-round running back who was presented with the opportunity to really take over as the Falcons lead back. Cordarrelle is truly a swiss army knife who shouldn’t be classified as a running back, wide receiver, or punt returner.
Patterson has fully embraced this opportunity and compared what he’s doing to his mom. This past weekend he said “If my mom could go out there and work three jobs, I can go out there and play three positions. Why can't I do what she did for us? It's like a big motivation, and every time I'm on the field, I don't care where they put me; I'm gonna make a play. You can put me at safety; I'm getting an interception. You put me at D-End, Ima get a sack. That's just the mindset that I have, and nobody can take that confidence away from me."
The guy straight up does it all. Ever since that week 2 game, Patterson hasn’t looked back. He has scored double-digit fantasy points in every game this season since week 2. For the first time since his bye in week 6, Cordarrelle failed to find the endzone this weekend against New Orleans. It didn’t matter though. He stilled totaled 19.6 fantasy points in PPR leagues. He had a miserable 10 rushing yards on his 9 carries, making for his worst rushing performance of the season. He managed to still have 6 receptions for 126 receiving yards.
Patterson is the leading rusher for the Falcons and second on the team in receiving yards, trailing rookie tight end Kyle Pitts. Patterson is currently 7th in position rank for running backs based on total points scored this season putting him ahead of first-round picks Dalvin Cook, Ezekiel Elliott, Aaron Jones, and Nick Chubb. For a guy that went mostly undrafted, I’d be thrilled with the production of Cordarrelle if he was on one of my teams.
Unfortunately, he is not.
In his 9th year in the league and on his 5th team, Cordarrelle will finish the season having the biggest production of his career and anybody who was able to hop on his bandwagon early is reaping the benefits of his success.