He looks good with the ball in his hands, however, I'm not confident he's as near gifted at catching the football, doesn't extend his arms very much, and doesn't flash a large catch radius,def want to see him in the allstar games and combine..I think his hands will measure smallish..he's really talented no doubt and worthy of really watching all offseason but were talking the 12 th spot so I'm only measuring him up to that standard At this point..sounds strange but I want to see him in his underwear.
I doubt his hands measure smallish as he's got long limbs. Guys with long limbs tend not to have small hands I don't think.
I don't know. I'm still trying to decide as well. However, when I think about it, guys like Dion Jordan, Keke Mingo, and Ezekial Ansah are being projected to go in the top half of the draft based largely on projections for how they will produce in the NFL. I'm not sure why Cordarrelle can't be projected that high either. He's a guy that might actually be projected this high if he didn't have to go to JUCO to start his career. I've been trying to think of a comparison in the NFL for him, and after watching him, the guy he is most similar to is Percy Harvin. Only Cordarrelle is bigger than Percy. Percy was very productive as a rookie and has been a very productive receiver in the NFL when he has been able to stay on the field. I don't think Cordarrelle has any injury issues that have plagued him or headaches. I think the issue with him is going to be whether he can learn the playbook in an appropriate amount of time. This is what kept Lamar Miller on the bench a good bit of the season, and this is also what kept Michael Egnew from being active at all. As far as having him focus on receiver only, I think you take away some of the value of having him as a young player if you do that.
That's an excellent comparison to Percy Harvin. Patterson is unique. I'm not whistling dixie when I say he's essentially Tavon Austin except 6 or 7 inches taller. He even takes carries and out of the backfield like a tailback just like Tavon Austin does. Tavon Austin's always being compared to Percy and so Cordarrelle Patterson should be as well. I think you've also encapsulated the concern with him. Can he learn the playbook in time. Joe Philbin can talk the talk about how his offense is easy as counting to three but when it comes to walking the walk he's got a bunch of young players he doesn't seem to trust because as time stretches on they still can't learn the offense. I think it probably has a lot to do with the speed at which they try and run the offense (no-huddle), and the amount of calls they make at the line of scrimmage. But I don't really know. He doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed but that might be an unfair judgment. Much was made in articles and whatnot of how he wasn't able to arrive with the Vols until a month later than everyone else, which everyone was worried would make it difficult for him to learn the Vols' playbook in his first year there off a JUCO stint. Yet, watch the tape and you see him running routes as a perimeter receiver, you see him run a few routes from the slot, you see him taking end-arounds from a position tight to the formation, you see him taking jet sweeps out of wildcat packages, you see him running option passes off of his end-around or jet sweep plays, and you see him taking carries out of the backfield as a tailback. Oh and he also was the teams primary kick return man, tried his hand at 4 punt returns with great success, and I could swear I've seen him play gunner on punt coverage. That doesn't for sure mean he wouldn't have trouble with the playbook, but I would tend to think it a good sign.
I've seen him drop two vertical passes, and there was also an incomplete pass that was more of a gray area on whether you call it a drop or not. One vertical pass he dropped against Florida was not an easy catch because the ball was probably about two feet further out than would've been most comfortable, but obviously still catchable as he got a hand on it. The other vertical pass I believe was in the Georgia game, and it was a perfect strike, and he just flat dropped it. The third play I call a gray area was a poor throw by Tyler Bray who threw it so short I could swear it one-hopped its way to Patterson, but one of the announcers immediately deemed it a drop and the other announcer though he blamed the poor throw on Bray said that even if it was a terrible throw Patterson could've caught it. It could be a sign he has trouble with low passes. But I mean Justin Hunter is touted as a top receiver and he seems like he drops 3 or 4 passes a game.
Very true. He's got a week. What I've heard is that it's a near certainty and the only reason it hasn't happened yet is he's still in the process of selecting an agent.
The negatives on him are fairly obvious and out there, almost cliche. Some of the routes he's run would SEEM a bit lazy and indistinctive especially against zone. In man, he seems like he knows what he's doing, gives good fakes, uses his hands well, and the remarkable agility and burst really do the rest. He doesn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, as I said, but then again it's kind of remarkable this was his first year at Tennessee and he arrived a month later than everyone else, yet learned the playbook to where he could become a starting receiver, take all these end-arounds, execute option passes, take carries out of the backfield, while holding down the team's kick return duties and some of its punt return duties. If this were a freshman and he had to arrive a month late and did all these things you'd probably be touting his ability to learn playbooks. That said I wonder if some of his miscues against zone and miscommunications with Tyler Bray have something to do with his being unlearned. Then again, Bray had at least as many miscommunications with Justin Hunter. Not that the hands are bad, but they are unproven because he's only got the one year at Tennessee and he didn't have nearly as many passes thrown to him as Justin Hunter. The body catching thing does happen. Most of the time it's because he's trying to use his body to shield the football from a defender that's in tight coverage with him. Sometimes it'll happen on a slant or dig, even if the defender isn't near him. But other times, when the ball is outside his frame, he extends his hands and plucks it. So he's really just varying his catch technique by situation, not necessarily IMO showing weak hands to where he needs to body catch everything. Dropping two vertical over the shoulder passes is concerning, as some players are just not very good at that and you would hate that to be the case here. I've seen good signs of the ability to adjust and catch balls that are behind him. The ability to catch the low ball is almost completely unknown at this point, just due to a lack of data points. He caught one low ball I think it was against Georgia along the sidelines, just barely getting a knee down before he went out of bounds. Then there's the South Carolina throw that looked like a short-hopped throw to me but the announcers seemed to think Patterson could have dug it out of the turf. I would say the ability for him to catch the football and toe tap is pretty well shown. After watching more of his film I rescind my original thoughts that he's not physical. He's actually pretty spicy. He has an attitude to him. It's just not Keenan Allen/Stedman Bailey physicality. But then, he's a lot bigger than Bailey and can do a lot more damage. Perfect example on a play against Georgia he ran a slant to the inside and a linebacker had fanned out aggressively from inside-out to cover him. The linebacker didn't really cover him but more like just tried to run straight through Patterson. Patterson didn't see in time to make him miss, they just collided. Patterson stood his ground while the linebacker fell embarrassingly to the turf. It ended up looking like a guy running full speed into a tree trunk.
I am a proponent of the art of body catching, I think it's necessary to be consistent and absolutely critical in certain situations..
If we go Cordarrelle at 12 then I want Stedman at 42... Because their combination of skills on one field would **** with safeties really badly.
Also, we have seen how Cordarrelle looks in a Tenn attack that has other GREAT receiving options soakig up some of the defense's attention. How does he operate in the NFL on a team with no other WRs who draw that kind if attention? How does he do when a defense can focus on him, and in compressed space, and with tighter CB coverage windows, and with a harder thrown ball by a bigger arm fittin it into those tight windows.. Do more balls bounce off that torso? Do his fuzzy-routes cause new problems with tighter windows? I think so. Everything you are admiring about him is with more margin for error because of more space than he will see in the NFL especially on a team where he'd be the only big threat.
Would be an interesting combination. Be like what West Virginia already has, except biggie sizing Tavon.
Here's what I do know. Watch the Georgia game. They wanted to put their best corner Sanders Commings on Justin Hunter. That's how they started the game. They had Branden Smith on Patterson, often in aggressive coverage. Less than halfway through the 2nd quarter though they switched and had Sanders Commings playing against Patterson and if Smith ever found himself on Patterson again during the rest of the game, it was an extremely off coverage about 8 or 9 yards off the ball. You want to see how quickly defenses could notice what Cordarrelle Patterson could do to them? This was the 2nd quarter of the 5th game of the season: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiH27BqHHqI&feature=player_detailpage#t=490s
Because those prospects biggest issues were not: - in accurate routes - body catching Their biggest strengths were not: - catching underneath balls then using the space to create yards They did not all one from - teams with other great receivers in the field
It just seems like you're picking weaknesses out of a hat and then assigning them more importance because of the same issues that every single draft prospect ever has to face when jumping to the NFL. You're not connecting the dots.
Did well against both but Sanders Commings got a pick on him off a fade that Bray under threw to the inside, if I remember correctly. Easily got behind Branden Smith for a potential deep catch on the vertical, despite Smith's 4.43 speed.
His career kick return average win JUCO? 41.9 yards per return. The one above is from his last season.
LOL I know. Insane. One reason he actually did command attention almost immediately during the season, aside from his having a statement game in the first game of the year against David Amerson and the NC State Wolfpack, is because he was a highly, highly coveted JUCO transfer. Many in Tennessee thought the best they've ever recruited, and that was before he went all H.A.M. on the SEC.
Derek Dooley: 'Ive never been around someone who's made such a big impact in such a short space of time'.
You look at who was recruiting him as well.......LSU, Auburn during their title year and Georgia were the main three. This ain't no Talladega Tech!!
Love the line here from Kenyan Drake: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/oct/24/pattersons-return-skill-ut-highlight/
Great line about his competitiveness at the top here. Gotta love that: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/oct/24/pattersons-return-skill-ut-highlight/
Stupid iPad.......here ya go mate: http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/aug/25/cordarrelle-patterson-more-necessary-now/
"His understanding of the offense has gotten a lot better," Hinshaw said. "He's an older newcomer, coming in as a junior, so he has more maturity and he's learning at a higher rate. He understands football really well."
Love this one: Pretty funny. Went out and had 6 catches for 93 yards and a touchdown he scored one on one with David Amerson, added 2 runs for 72 yards and another touchdown. Nervous?
