Giants’ Joe Judge: Cordarrelle Patterson ‘one of the best returners ever’
We know that New York Giants head coach Joe Judge values special teams. After all, he coached special teams for three yeas under Nick Saban at Alabama before handling the teams for eight years for Bill Belichick in New England. He gets excited when discussing special teams whether they be the Giants’ or another teams.
This Sunday, the Giants will face the Chicago Bears, who have two dynamic returners in running back Tarik Cohen and wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson.
“They do a great job of really controlling the field position and creating opportunities for their offense,” Judge told reporters about the Bears’ return teams. “They have two elite returners. Cohen back there on punt returns, everybody is at the point of attack every time this guy gets the ball. He’s dynamic, he’s explosive, he can make a homerun play on any play. Patterson is one of the best to ever play the game as a kick returner. Simply put, this guy is someone that you’ll read about in history books. When you play against this guy, everybody on the field better be aware of where he’s at, whether that’s offense or on special teams.
“He’s done a tremendous job covering kicks. I’ve had personal experience with CP from my days somewhere else. He’s just a pleasure to coach, he’s a fun competitor to be around. He’s just good for the locker room.”
Many would say Judge was exaggerating about Patterson, but he’s not. He is not your garden variety returner at 6-foot-2 and 238 pounds.
Patterson began his career with the Minnesota Vikings in 2013 and was named a first-team All-Pro as a rookie. From there, he moved on to Oakland in 2017 before landing with, you guessed it, New England in 2018 where he played under Judge on the Patriots’ Super Bowl winning club. Patterson signed on with the Bears in 2019.
All told, Patterson has been named a first-team All-Pro three times and a second-team All-Pro three times. In addition, he was named to the NFL’s 2010s All-Decade Team.
For the record, Patterson has a career kickoff average of 30.0 yards per attempt, which is good for second on the NFL’s all-time list. Some guy named Gale Sayers is first with a 30.6 average.
