Chicago Bears: Adding Cordarrelle Patterson is a great move

The Chicago Bears are a team looking to take the next step in 2019, and adding this player is a step in the right direction!

Depth is the most important thing in any sport when it comes to winning the championship. The Chicago Bears added some of that on Tuesday when they added former Minnesota Viking, Oakland Raider and New England Patriot Cordarrelle Patterson. He is going to be an important piece for the Bears this upcoming season, and this could prove to be a very nice signing for a team looking to win it all.

Patterson is a pretty good receiver in his own right. He usually has not started most of the games he’s played in as a wide receiver, however. What makes him so great is the fact that he is an exceptional kick returner. This guy is so good at it that he earned two separate Pro Bowl selections in his career. One came in 2013 and the other in 2016.

He averages 30 yards per return in his career, which is awesome news for Bears fans. That is the second most all-time, behind Gale Sayers. If he can bring a great return game to the Bears and enhance their field position on most drives, that could really go a long way for an offense looking to take the next step. He will be a substantial upgrade over Benny Cunningham, and also means the Bears don’t have to consider putting Tarik Cohen at further injury risk since he is already returning punts. Cohen is too valuable at the running back position to risk injury on a kick return.

The funny part about the signing is that in 2018 Patterson had a kick return for a touchdown at Soldier Field in a win for the New England Patriots over the Bears. It gets even better. That is not the only time Patterson returned one to the house at Soldier Field. On September 15, 2013, he returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown as a member of the Minnesota Vikings. It is wild that he has had that success at one specific road field but now it is his home and hopefully the field is the trick for him.

The Bears and their fans are known to appreciate a great kickoff returner, as they had the best one in the history of the NFL in his prime. That man was Devin Hester. Now with the rule changes, Patterson likely isn’t going to have quite the same impact, and you can’t even really expect touchdowns all the time either. What he needs to bring is a return game that will put the offense in ideal field position more often than not.

He will probably be a depth receiver type guy in a regular game situation, which is okay. He is a swiss army knife type player that every championship team needs. He proved that in 2018, as his Patriots won the Super Bowl with him on the active roster. As a receiver, he never started more than eight games but played in all 16 games every year of his career except one, which came last year and he played 15 of the 16. He is just a reliable weapon that certainly makes the Bears a better team than they were a week ago.

Are the Bears done in free agency? Hopefully not, as they are getting into Super Bowl or bust territory. It will definitely be interesting to see how the rest of their free agency season goes.