If you didn’t know who we were talking about today already from the headline, these are the clues we would have given you to try and identify a mystery player: 2013 first rounder, four-time Pro Bowler (2013, 2016, 2019, 2020), Super Bowl champion (2018), journeyman who has played for five franchises already, and a member of the Hall of Fame All-2010s team (whatever that is). You’d be pretty stumped, we suspect. Right?

Forget the fact he won a ring with the cheatin’ New England Patriots: Cordarrelle Patterson is lucky he played when he did, as the new NFL kickoff rules take away most of his tangible value to a team, and he already had a hard time sticking with one franchise, obviously, after the Minnesota Vikings drafted him No. 29 overall over a decade ago. He’s had an odd career, for sure, and now? Patterson is playing for a sixth team.

In 514 regular-season carries, he’s gained 2,511 yards for a 4.9 yards-per-carry average. That seems pretty good. He also caught 298 passes, but he’s only managed to post 2,795 yards receiving, for an average of just 9.4 yards per catch. That seems low for a guy with such ability to elude tackles on kickoff returns. Speaking of, he has averaged 29.3 yards per kickoff return through his career, scoring 9 touchdowns that way.

With 38 TDs from scrimmage (22 rushing, 16 receiving), Patterson has found the end zone 47 times in the regular season—a modest total spread out over three different methods. His Pro Bowl and HoF 2010s placements came from the return prowess: thrice he led the NFL in return average, and twice he topped his peers in return yardage. In addition, six different seasons of his featured 100-yard plus returns: Crazytown!

He now starts his age-33 season playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers in uncertain times, as his body and legs are sure to be feeling all the poundings he’s taken over the years—and those new kickoff parameters, too, are designed to protect players from injury, while probably minimizing the role of a dynamic return man, since the holes in front are unlikely to open up and be so wide. Where does this leave Patterson now? Hmm.

Well, he’s listed third on depth chart at running back in 2024 for the Steelers, but after averaging just 3.6 ypc last year on 50 carries with the Atlanta Falcons, he’s probably not going to see much action there. It also doesn’t seem the Pittsburgh coaching staff plans on using him at wide receiver, a position he played for the first eight seasons of his career with the Vikings, the Oakland Raiders, the Patriots, and the Chicago Bears.

The Steelers signed him to a two-year deal, probably just to see if he had anything left to apply to the new kickoff rules. We sadly wouldn’t be surprised to see him get waived by midseason, in truth: his deal gives him just a $2.25M cap hit in 2024, so it’s not a big deal to absorb that loss if all does not turn out well in Pittsburgh. The NFL doesn’t guarantee all years of a contract like MLB does, for example, so we shall see.