The comparisons between Cordarrelle Patterson and Josh Gordon are as pervasive as they are knee-jerk. When the clueless guy at your fantasy draft can barely say the word Cordarrelle, but still knows Patterson is supposed to be "the next Josh Gordon," you know the capital-n Narrative has reached code red. Why has this happened? Are these players really so similar? Or does it all boil down to the (kind of dumb) argument that offensive coordinator Norv Turner is magic?
Well, both men are big, fast wideouts. If anything, Patterson looks slightly better than Gordon on paper:
But as you're well aware, they don't play the game on paper. In reality, it's far from certain that Patterson is capable of the breakout Gordon produced in 2013. Why? Because what Gordon did last season was one of the most impressive and frankly improbable things I've seen in the NFL.
In his second season, Gordon still wasn't much of a route runner. He drifted. He rarely ran timing routes. He almost always made exactly one cut per route. In my experience watching tape, I seldom see players as unpolished as Gordon continually dominate games. They might flash occasionally -- when a missed tackle or blown assignment allows them a big play -- but for most receivers, getting open is hard. It requires refinement and technique, things Gordon still didn't have in abundance in '13.
But amazingly, Gordon didn't need much technique to get open last season. Give the Cleveland Browns (and Turner, their offensive coordinator at the time) credit for realizing this: They kept Gordon's routes simple, realizing that his shocking fluidity and body control were enough to overcome his sometimes so-so footwork. Gordon's bread-and-butter routes last season were slants and delayed crosses. If Browns fans saw it once, they saw it a hundred times:
The concept here could scarcely be simpler. Gary Barnidge goes in motion from the top of the Browns' formation; his presence, along with Jordan Cameron in line, is enough to draw the Patriots' Steve Gregory away from Gordon. In fact, Gregory audibles something to Devin McCourty (not pictured), and they both cheat toward the defense's left. Bad move. Gordon is now effectively isolated against Aqib Talib. It doesn't go well for Talib, but what's amazing is that Gordon's cut is awful. It's a slant, but he gives the route away, rounding it off rather than sticking it hard. Talib sees it coming, backs off, cheats inside. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Once Gordon gets across Talib's face, it's over. Even without optimal footwork, he's fast and fluid getting to the inside, and he's so big that Talib can't bat the ball away. Boom: 80-yard touchdown.
My point? This isn't really about scheme. Replay Gordon's highlights from '13 and you'll see crosses and slants and some jump balls down the sideline, plays that the sophomore stud was able to make because he's so big and so smooth and so coordinated. These aren't cases of: "Wow, Norv Turner runs a better system for receivers than anyone else!" Absolutely give Turner credit for understanding what he had in Gordon, and going back to that well again and again because nobody could stop it. But recognizing unstoppable talent is quite a bit different than manufacturing it.
So we fast-forward a year. Turner now coordinates the Minnesota Vikings' offense and has another wonderful raw athlete in his stable. I absolutely trust that Turner will do everything he can do to make Patterson a star. There are playcallers in the NFL who get in the way of their best offensive assets, but Turner isn't one of those. In the end, though, what it comes down to: Is Patterson (a) significantly more polished than he looked as a rookie, or (b) ready to be a generational talent who can make plays without the benefit of route-running polish?
We won't really know the answer to the first part of this question until regular-season games begin in earnest, but I have my doubts. Patterson was a mess footwork-wise last season, which explains why the Vikings usually threw it to him short and asked him to run in the open field. He finished 83rd out of 84 qualified WRs in average yards at the catch last season, and here was his route chart:
Patterson just didn't get open much in '13 unless it was on a receiver screen. Can that change? Absolutely. But will it? We'll see.
Patterson
Finally, does Patterson have the kind of talent -- Ã la Gordon -- that renders quaint notions like "running crisp routes to get open" irrelevant? That's the million-dollar question. He's got the size and raw sprinting speed. But here's a list of other players who timed sub-4.5 at around 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds: Darrius Heyward-Bey, Chad Jackson, Derek Hagan, Mike Sims-Walker, Robert Meachem, Legedu Naanee, Devin Thomas, Leonard Hankerson, Jon Baldwin, Stephen Hill and Tommy Streeter. If it were easy to translate raw tools into dominating NFL production without crisp routes (like Gordon), all these guys would've done it.
Now, by scoring nine total touchdowns as a rookie, Patterson has already been more productive than most of those on the above list. He's a wonder in the open field. What I'm saying is: I have my doubts that Patterson is suddenly ready to be a silky route runner, so if he's going to join the top 10 receivers in fantasy, he'll probably have to prove he's just an utterly dominant physical force the way Gordon was last season. It's possible. His raw measurables are freaky. But anyone who tells you it's a lock simply because Turner is his coordinator is oversimplifying things.
