What Cordarrelle Patterson Finds Tough About Position Change
There's running with the football and then there's playing running back.
Cordarrelle Patterson is stepping over the bridge between the two now, as he tries to play like an actual running back, and along with this comes running inside for tough yardage.
"I'm just trying to get better running between the tackles, just running it period," Patterson said. "All my career, I've been running it outside a lot, so that game's natural to me. I'm just trying to run it in the A and B gap, so I'm just trying to learn that. It's all new to me."
It's on the interior within the A and B gaps where he'll find some large players, and he already has. In practice, Patterson has met up with Bears 350-pound defensive end Akiem Hicks in the first two padded practices.
That alone is enough to make many running backs want to play outside and face cornerbacks and safeties at wide receiver.
"It's not good," Patterson said. "I've been hit by him these last two days at practice in full pads. He's a monster, man. He's one of the best I've seen. I'm not saying that because he's on my team. He's an animal. I wouldn't want to block him."
Blocking anyone is another part of this metamorphosis Patterson is undertaking, and an important one.
"I mean, it's different, but it’s football, man," Patterson said. "It's something I've been doing my whole life. It's going to come, man. It's going to take time. For a fact, it's something I don't have down right now, so I keep spending time with Rags (passing coordinator Dave Ragone) each and every day.
"I'm just trying to keep learning it and master my craft."
One of Patterson's problems as a receiver was route running. There's less to worry about with this in the backfield but more problems like Hicks or throwing a block or worrying about a big lineman's paw reaching out and stripping away the ball as he tries to power past.
"He just has to learn the different details to running the ball inside," running backs coach Charles London said. "And he just has to learn to trust in his eye placement. He's doing a good job. He's working really hard. He wants all the reps he can get to continue to get better at that spot. I continue to see him get better and better as he gets more comfortable in the role that we are asking him to play."
Patterson talks as if he was a running back in the past and it's true that he carried out of the backfield with New England. He did it a little for the Bears last year, as well. By and large, he was a receiver trying to run out of the backfield. Now the Bears have more plans than that for him.
"First of all, you have to trust in your offensive linemen," Patterson said. "As a receiver, I didn't know anything about that. You just have to trust those big guys up front to do their job on the field. Just run between them."
While the Bears like the thought of a 6-foot-2, 232-pound back with sub-4.5 second speed in the 40 charging downhill with the ball, he's going to need to make the actual conversion.
"I think it'll be our job as coaches to make sure that however we decide to use Cordarrelle that we think is best, we'll go ahead and do that," coach Matt Nagy said. "But there's different ways throughout his career that he's had success. And again, really with all these players, we want to make sure that we do a good job at using them and getting them touches, using them in other ways as well.
"We're just kinda working through that and being able to get it on tape and see what we like and what we don't like."
Within the Bears offense, it almost seems inevitable Patterson would be taking away backfield time from third-down back Tarik Cohen.
"As far as Cordarrelle being in that room, it doesn't affect how we plan to use Tarik," London said. "It's our job as play makers to find ways to give play makers the ball. So I don't see it affecting Tarik's playing time."
While Patterson is playing running back, there is something else he'll continue to do. He won't stop playing special teams just because his position is in the backfield instead of at receiver.
"We want Cordarrelle playing special teams and we're excited that he is still going to be our kick returner and playing out there at gunner," special teams coordinator Chris Tabor said.
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