When it’s time to hang up his cleats and call it a career, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Cordarrelle Patterson is going to eventually find a home in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, due primarily to his exploits as a kick returner.
In his career, Patterson has taken nine kickoffs to the house, putting himself firmly in the discussion as the best kick returner in NFL history.
But so far with the new kickoff rules in place in 2024, Patterson hasn’t gotten a chance to exploit the new rules and show just how great he is in that phase of the game. That’s not bothering Patterson, though. He understands it.
“Most kickoffs, man, I can’t control that. I mean, if I was a kicker, I wouldn’t kick it to me, either,” Patterson told reporters Friday, according to video via the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Chris Adamski on Twitter. “I mean, they wanna kick it to me, man, and kick it to one of the best in the league? Man, go ahead. So we got a good plan.
“We’ve been working on it since OTAs and just trying to figure out how to get the ball in my hands on kickoff return.”
So far this season, Patterson hasn’t had an opportunity to try his hand in the new kickoff return, a rule change the Steelers specifically signed Patterson for to try and exploit. He never got a shot in the preseason and hasn’t had a kickoff return in the regular season. Running back Jaylen Warren has the Steelers’ only kickoff return on the year, and it was a 13-yarder against the Denver Broncos in Week 2 on the road.
That time, Warren bobbled the kickoff, had to pick it up and was pinned inside his own 20-yard line.
On other kickoffs, teams are electing to just give the Steelers the ball at the 30-yard line on a touchback instead of risking kicking it to Patterson in the landing zone, avoiding giving him the opportunity to take one to the house and change the game.
That hasn’t happened so far this season, but maybe that time is coming. For now, Patterson understands why teams are avoiding him. He’d avoid himself, too, if he was a kicker.
