At 33, Cordarrelle Patterson isn't old by normal standards. But he is getting up in age for a skill position player in the NFL.
Thing is, Patterson isn't just any skill position player. He's continued to evolve over the course of his 12-year NFL career, doing whatever is needed of him on his various teams.
It's served him well, as his journey has taken him to six different teams, seven All-Pro selections, a Super Bowl and perhaps will wind up with him someday being enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Not bad for a guy who is, in his own words, just having fun playing a kid's game.
Call him a kick returner. Call him a wide receiver. Call him a running back. None of it matters to Patterson. He just wants to be on the field, helping his team no matter what is asked of him.
"I've been doing it my whole life. So many guys, they get stuck on just having one title," Patterson said. "Sometimes, you can get run out of the league doing that because you don't want to do multiple things. I'm a guy that's always willing to learn new positions and do whatever I need to do to help my team win."
Patterson has done plenty of that in his career, including being named to the NFL's All-Decade Team for the 2010s as a kick returner along with new Pro Football Hall of Fame member Devin Hester.
A wide receiver coming out of Tennessee in 2013, Patterson made an immediate splash as a kick returner after the Minnesota Vikings selected him in the first round (29th overall) in the NFL Draft that year.
Playing in just his second NFL game, Patterson returned the opening kickoff 105 yards for a touchdown in a Week 2 loss to the Bears.
A star was born.
While he would catch 45 passes for 469 yards and four touchdowns for the Vikings that season, his impact in the return game was like few others in NFL history. Patterson also returned the opening kickoff of a Week 7 game against the Packers an NFL-record 109 yards for a touchdown, leading the league that season with a 32.4 yards per return average while earning first-team All-Pro honors.
It's something he's excelled at over the course of his career, which has seen him play for the Vikings, Raiders, Patriots, Bears and Falcons before joining the Steelers this season.
Patterson's nine career kick returns for a touchdown are an NFL record.
That's why when the NFL voted to go to the Dynamic Kickoff Rule earlier this year, it was no coincidence the Steelers signed Patterson to a contract hours before the vote was announced.
With the NFL attempting to bring the kick return – which had fallen to just over 20 percent – back into the game, why not have the league's most dynamic kick returner of all-time on your roster?
"He presents big challenges because he loves it, he loves to compete most of all," Steelers special teams coordinator Danny Smith said. "He's talented. He's big. He's strong. He's fast. He'll take chances. He'll take calculated risks. He's the kind of guy you want back there. That's why he is who he is."
Patterson's size and speed combination might be the thing that separates him from so many other players. At the NFL Scouting Combine in 2013, Patterson measured in at 6-foot-2 and 216 pounds. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.42 seconds.
His listed weight is now 220 pounds, but that doesn't account for the strength he's gained after more than a decade in the NFL.
"I'm a big guy," Patterson said with a laugh. "Most guys don't want to tackle in this league. They're going to try to hit you in your ankles and all that. I wouldn't want to tackle me, either, if I saw me coming at full speed."
That's one reason Arthur Smith, now the Steelers offensive coordinator, decided to change Patterson's position when he was signed by the Falcons in 2021, Smith's first season as Atlanta's head coach.
Patterson had played some running back at his previous stops, and he was always dangerous on jet sweeps and reverses.
Smith, in need of playmakers, reinvented Patterson as a primary runner for Atlanta in 2021.
"That one came to life when I got to Atlanta," Smith recalled. "A strategy was made to clear the cap. You're looking for anybody to help. We signed CP late. Did little in free agency the first couple years, so we were in total roster transition.
"He was out there. We had a couple of coaches that had worked with him in Chicago. They knew his skillset. I watched him from afar. I had done different things with a kind of positionless player before with Jonnu Smith. We had put him in the backfield as an H(-back), a tight end, out wide. He was a unique skill-set player. And so, when we were able to sign him late, and then out of necessity, I think we did a lot of unconventional warfare."
Patterson became an all-purpose running back.
Patterson wound up starting a career-high 13 games and rushing 153 times for 618 yards with six touchdowns while also catching 52 passes for 548 yards and five more scores. All matched or set new career highs for the 30-year-old.
The following season, at 31, he surpassed those marks, rushing for 695 yards and eight scores.
Not many players reinvent themselves after nearly a decade in the NFL. But Patterson was more than happy to do so.
"I'm just a guy that's willing to do anything that's on a football field," Patterson said. "I don't sell myself short on anything. I feel I can play any position on the football field. When my name is called, I just go out and make a play. If it's on kickoff, on punt, defense, quarterback, if I need to do that."
Patterson has done a little bit of everything over the course of his career, including lining up on defense on occasion. In a Week 2 win at Denver this season, he lined up at gunner for the punt team when the Steelers had some in-game injuries. He's also played some wide receiver, running back and, of course, has served as a kick returner.
But quarterback?
Well, don't doubt the man.
Before every game while warming up, Patterson plays catch with young fans in the stands showing off his arm. He jokingly says it's to show the coaching staff he's capable of doing that, as well.
In reality, he does it for a completely different reason.
"I've been doing that since I was in Minnesota," Patterson said. "I used to just walk up and down and sign autographs and take pictures and all of that. Then one day I just started throwing the ball in Minnesota, and I've been throwing it in the stands ever since then. If I can touch one person a day and maybe change their life, I want to do that. I'm trying to."
It's just another thing for him to enjoy about the game he's played since he was 6 in his backyard with his family growing up in Rock Hill, S.C.
"Ever since I picked up that football, running around in the backyard with my family, it's been fun," Patterson said. "I'm never going to stop having fun. No matter what goes on, it's a game. It's a fun game for me, at that. You can't get too serious. You've got to enjoy it. It's a kid's game. I still treat it like I'm still young playing at a young age."
He has perhaps his most fun putting fear into opposing kick coverage units.
Understandably, his reputation precedes him. Over the past four seasons, his kick return opportunities have gotten fewer and fewer, going from 18 in his first season in Atlanta to seven last season, which still led the Falcons. Despite getting just nine chances to return kicks in 2022, he still took one 103 yards for a score, the record-setting ninth of his career.
Nobody wants to play with fire when it comes to giving Patterson an opportunity to return a kick.
"We played him two years ago in Atlanta and he didn't touch a ball," said Danny Smith. "That's the amount of respect I have for him. That's a double-edged sword too. If you're kicking it to the other guy and that guy is returning it to the 35 or 40, what have you gained? You still have to win the field position battle. And we did. They moved him around, which was smart on the part of the Atlanta coach. But we moved the ball around, as well, and he didn't touch the ball against us. That's the amount of respect I have for him."
Steelers' All-Pro special teams star Miles Killebrew was part of the planning for that game and remembers all the additional preparation the team had to put in that week.
"Shoot, he's the best in the game," Killebrew said. "He has a bunch of touchdowns. When you're talking about a new play, essentially, with the new return, I would imagine not a lot of coaches want to leave a lot to the imagination when it comes to Cordarrelle. You don't want to play the odds with a guy like that who has touchdowns to his name. So, even if it's just a little bit of hesitation, I can't imagine people wanting to press their luck against a guy like that."
That's been the case thus far since Patterson joined the Steelers.
In the team's first four games with Patterson on the field, opponents kicked the ball through the end zone on all but one occasion. And on that one attempt, they squibbed a ball to Jaylen Warren on the other side of the field, away from Patterson.
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But with Patterson out the past four games with an ankle injury, opponents have given the Steelers six more opportunities to return kicks.
Patterson is itching for a chance to test the new rule, but he also wants to be smart about picking his opportunities.
"It's different now. There are different rules now, so we get better field position," he said. "If I don't get the ball, we get it at the 30. If they don't kick it in (the landing zone), we get it at the 40. It's a game within the game. Whenever that ball comes, I'm going to be ready. Trust me. No matter when it comes. If it has to start snowing and get cold, that's what's going to happen. We'll see what happens."
That could happen in Sunday's game against Washington.
While the Steelers as a team have just seven kick returns this season, Washington has allowed a league-high 41 kickoff returns with 15 touchbacks.
The Commanders, however, could still choose to kick away from Patterson.
"These kickers, they're just getting better by the year," Patterson said. "They can place the ball wherever they want to. And they know what you're doing back there. They see you trying to trick them, move this way, move that way. They really know. We're trying to trick them and they're trying to trick us. One day, we're going to get them."
And when that happens, Patterson will be ready to strike. He's always ready - for anything.
Even if the kick return opportunities don't come this week, with the weather getting colder, the Steelers know opposing teams won't be able to avoid kicking the ball to Patterson all season.
"I enjoy it. I do whatever when my number is called," Patterson said. "The kickoffs, I can't control that. If I was a kicker, I wouldn't kick it to me either. If they want to kick it to me, one of the best in the league, go ahead. We've got a good plan. We've been working on it since OTAs. We're just trying to figure out ways to get the ball in my hands on kickoff returns."
