Lost among all of the attention being paid to Adrian Peterson’s future with the Minnesota Vikings is a report that the Vikings may be shopping wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson.
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer attempted to put those rumors to rest on Tuesday, saying the team would not be trading their young wideout, despite his disappointing second season.
“No, no chance whatsoever,” Zimmer said while appearing on NBC Radio Tuesday. “Cordarrelle is a young, emerging player who was with his third coordinator in three years. Quite frankly, we need to do a good job of figuring out how we can use him better and he needs to understand where he’s supposed to be, the routes and everything.”
Patterson fell out of favor with Zimmer and the other coaches after he struggled to grasp the Vikings offense. He was quickly passed up by little known Charles Johnson after the Vikings acquired him off Cleveland’s practice squad.
The Vikings have been looking for other receiving options to pair with their young quarterback Teddy Bridgewater after Patterson struggled last season.
The team recently traded for veteran deep threat Mike Wallace, then released Greg Jennings.
But 1500 ESPN notes that Patterson is on a relatively cheap rookie contract for the next two years, and he currently wouldn’t command the type of return the Vikings would want in a trade – especially after trading second, third, fourth and seventh-round draft picks to get him.
Mike Wobschall of Vikings.com thinks the addition of Wallace may actually enhance Patterson’s role in 2015.
“While Wallace could command more targets than Patterson in the passing game, Wallace’s presence on the field and the way the defense tries to neutralize his speed may actually open things up underneath and in the intermediate range for Patterson.”
“He’s a great kid, humble,” Zimmer said. “He wants to be good, so all those things are so important to me. Anybody like that, who is hungry, I have a lot of affinity for.”
