The Cordarrelle Patterson Trade is a Sign That Things are Back to Normal with the Pats
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I’m not about to sit here and pretend that Cordarrelle Patterson is some kind of transcendent, league-changing player. As a matter of fact, it would be hard to argue that as a wide receiver, he’s been anything but a bust given the fact that the Vikings took him with the 29th pick in 2013. By making a trade to get the New England pick, in exchange for picks that netted the Patriots Jamie Collins, Logan Ryan, Josh Boyce and a late pick they used to get LeGarrette Blount. Which is a pretty good haul for a 1st round receiver whose career single-season highs are 469 yards, an 11.2 Y/R and 4 TDs.
And yet, despite Patterson’s lack of production, I’m over the moon about this move. This is things returning to normal around here. The classic Patriots off-season, now in full swing. Belichick suffers heavy casualties in the early hours, stands his ground, then launches a counter-offensive and aggressively goes on the attack.
He’s returned fire by replacing Malcolm Butler with Jason McCourty, replaced Dion Lewis with Jeremy Hill (55th pick in 2014), added Adrian Clayborn (20th in 2011) and Danny Shelton (12th in 2015) to a thin defensive front and replaced the return abilities of Danny Amendola and Lewis with Patterson:
And given up practically nothing, both in terms of draft capital and cap dollars. The Patriots avoid 5th round picks like they were Russian toxic nerve agents. As Phil Perry points out, they have only pulled the trigger on one 5th rounder in the last six drafts, and used it on long snapper Joe Cardona. And as Inside the Pylon’s Dave Archibald said a few years ago (credit again to Perry for the find), the “stud rate” on prospects drops 45 percent from Round 4 to Round 5. But the Patriots philosophy is that the drop off from Round 5 to 6 is negligible. So this is an example of Belichick passing on a player in 2013, getting two defensive starters, a (failed) developmental receiver and bell cow running back in return. Then getting that same player back in 2018 for the price of moving back from a draft round he doesn’t like to one he does. Meaning business in Foxboro is being done as business has always been done.
And I for one am taking great comfort in that. God knows they still have their work cut out for them. Nate Solder will not be replaced easily. But he’s the highest paid O-lineman in football and they have not built a dynasty by paying good-to-very-good players like Solder like they are All Pros. They’ve done it by having the discipline to let core players go when they get too expensive and find other, cheaper, more fiscally responsible means to land players gifted enough to have gotten drafted high elsewhere. Again, I’m not overrating Patterson. Maybe he’ll find his juju in the Pats offense and develop Brady’s trust, but I doubt it. But we can be sure he’ll be a Special Teams threat and occasionally make plays with his speed in Josh McDaniels’ offense. For the reasonable price of virtually nothing. And we’ve now ridden out the worst part of free agency and can officially relax. Because Belichick is once again doing Belichick things.