Cordarrelle Patterson was a gem for fantasy last season, but going into 2022 what should you do with him- Trust Or Bust?
2021 Season
Patterson was a player that I was in on during draft season. I took him in alot of drafts with my last selection. (I always recommend going for players that aren’t going to just fill your bench- they perform or you drop them.) The reason being that Mike Davis was the only back of note that the team had rostered, and Patterson had been taking snaps at RB in training camp.
His 2021 season was good though. Ending the season with 1,166 all-purpose yards, 52 receptions and 11 TDs. But, not everything was smooth. There was the game against the 49ers in Week 15 where he had…..23 yards and two receptions.
Outside of those games where he struggled, he missed one game (two really, as he got injured early in the game before).
| Rush | Receiving | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week | Opp | Result | Att | Yds | Y/A | TD | Tgt | Rec | Yds | Y/R | TD | |
| 1 | PHI | L 6-32 | 7 | 54 | 7.71 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 6.50 | 0 | |
| 2 | @ | TAM | L 25-48 | 7 | 11 | 1.57 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 58 | 11.60 | 1 |
| 3 | @ | NYG | W 17-14 | 7 | 20 | 2.86 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 82 | 13.67 | 0 |
| 4 | WAS | L 30-34 | 6 | 34 | 5.67 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 82 | 16.40 | 3 | |
| 5 | NYJ | W 27-20 | 14 | 54 | 3.86 | 0 | 9 | 7 | 60 | 8.57 | 0 | |
| 7 | @ | MIA | W 30-28 | 14 | 60 | 4.29 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0.50 | 0 |
| 8 | CAR | L 13-19 | 9 | 35 | 3.89 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 37 | 7.40 | 1 | |
| 9 | @ | NOR | W 27-25 | 9 | 10 | 1.11 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 126 | 21.00 | 0 |
| 10 | @ | DAL | L 3-43 | 4 | 25 | 6.25 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 14.00 | 0 |
| 11 | NWE | L 0-25 | Inactive | |||||||||
| 12 | @ | JAX | W 21-14 | 16 | 108 | 6.75 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 27 | 13.50 | 0 |
| 13 | TAM | L 17-30 | 13 | 78 | 6.00 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 18 | 6.00 | 0 | |
| 14 | @ | CAR | W 29-21 | 16 | 58 | 3.63 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0.50 | 0 |
| 15 | @ | SFO | L 13-31 | 11 | 18 | 1.64 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 2.50 | 0 |
| 16 | DET | W 20-16 | 7 | 14 | 2.00 | 1 | 2 | 1 | -1 | -1.00 | 0 | |
| 17 | @ | BUF | L 15-29 | 9 | 28 | 3.11 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 24 | 12.00 | 0 |
| 18 | NOR | L 20-30 | 4 | 11 | 2.75 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.00 | 0 | |
| 7-9-0 | 153 | 618 | 4.04 | 6 | 69 | 52 | 548 | 10.54 | 5 | |||
2022 Changes & Their Impact
After a successful 2021 season, it’s hard to see why he is being overlooked so much. Based on Sleeper ADP, he is being taken as the 85 pick off the board in Redraft PPR leagues. And that’s the highest! But nothing has really changed for his outlook.
Backfield Competition
The level of competition out of the backfield hasn’t really changed. Last season, the team had Mike Davis, Wayne Gallman & Qadree Ollison as competition. No-one really of note. Entering this season, the names are Tyler Allgeier (drafted) and Damien Williams.
Williams has never really been given an every-down role. His heaviest touch season was in 2019, where he was given 111 rush attempts with 37 targets. Allgeier is the wildcard, he was drafted in the fifth round, but he has he ability to play (link to rookie profile). Out of these players, I’d expect Allgeier to be the threat for Patterson.
But there are 196 carries that have just left the offense, more than half of the total attempts for the team.
Work As A Receiver
Patterson’s ability as a receiver really gives him good value for fantasy. He was able to showcase his receiving skills a few times last season, and was given 69 targets last season- a mark only bettered by 4 other players in the league.
The argument would be there that he got those targets because Calvin Ridley was forced to miss time. Well, that’s not going to change this season with Ridley suspended. The team may well have drafted Drake London, but Patterson should still be able to have a decent chunk of targets.
Look at this way, if you hand Pitts and London a quarter of the targets each (which is most definitely over-estimating) you’d still be giving a roster full of question marks over 200 targets.
QB Impact
The element that I can see impacting the value of Patterson is the change at QB. Losing a player of Ryan’s quality is going to have a massive impact. The number of scoring opportunities is likely to go down, just as the offense is likely to take a bit of a step back. Mariota is going to need to get used to the offense, and he hasn’t really ever been able to support a high powered offense.
In his five years for the Titans, his best season was throwing for 3,426 yards. That is more than 1,000 yards less than Ryan has thrown the ball on average over the last four years. The thing with Mariota, is that he has shown his ability with his legs. Ryan hasn’t really played like that in his career. When he has been pressured, he has dumped the ball off. That was great for Patterson for fantasy.
Overall 2022 Fantasy Outlook
I like Patterson for fantasy, I’ll say that on the record. The Atlanta offense isn’t the greatest in the league, but it wasn’t last year and Patterson was successful.
With where he is currently available, he is almost the dictionary definition of low risk, high reward. I’m not saying that I would necessarily take him ahead of the likes of J.K. Dobbins for example, but I have him currently doing better with my projections.
Volume is king, and Patterson’s involvement just can’t be overlooked. Especially if you go WR early in drafts, Patterson could really help your team this seaosn.
