Cordarrelle Patterson: Never met with assigned offseason mentor

We may never know the identity of the mentor Cordarrelle Patterson was assigned to work with this offseason, but it doesn’t matter because Patterson never worked with the guy anyway.

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Patterson told the Star-Tribune‘s Matt Vensel that he did sit down with the unidentified mentor at the Super Bowl and said Mike Zimmer was “cool” with that being their only contact.

Well if Mike Zimmer was cool with it, who are we to judge?

Though Patterson may have elected not to hook up with his mentor, he did do some different things this offseason to get better, including working with a trainer who had him running up hills and carrying buckets of water.

Was his trainer Pai Mei by any chance? Did he also learn the Five-Point-Palm Exploding-Heart Technique?

Bucket-carrying is all fine and good but Patterson’s real need for improvement is in the mental area of the game. He clearly was not focusing on the field last year and that was a big part of his problem.

To his credit, Patterson seems to grasp how important it is for him to show improvement in the mental side of the game (via Star-Tribune):

"He admits now that his lost 2014 season, during which he had only 33 catches for 384 yards, was a needed wake-up call.“That urgency, it needs to be there for me every play,” Patterson said."

Patterson could be a big weapon for the Vikings if he ever puts it all together, but even if the former first-rounder fails to improve, the Vikings have some pretty good pieces at receiver and should be all right.

Last year’s bad performance clearly convinced the Vikings that it would be unwise for them to count on Patterson as a big part of their offensive attack. That’s why Mike Wallace and Stefon Diggs are now on the team.

Next: Bridgewater becoming tight with Wallace

Cordarrelle Patterson: Never met with assigned offseason mentor

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