When news broke that the Steelers cut Cordarrelle Patterson earlier this week observers the reaction of many was, “What took them so long?”
Cordarrelle Patterson runs against the Colts. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Michael Conroy
They may be right – I think the Steelers were probably wise to bring him to camp, but my conclusions track in a different direction. Namely that the Cordarrelle Patterson experiment highlights the dangers of “False Friends” in NFL roster building.
Let’s clarify something important here: Using “False Friends” to describe Cordarrelle Patterson or the other players soon to be mentioned, says nothing about their character, work ethnic or presence in the locker room.
- Rather, “False Friends” in this context is a concept borrowed from second language acquisition.
Take the words “assist” and “asistir” in English and Spanish. In my first week living in Buenos Aires, Mari my Argentine “aunt” asked me, “Te vas a asistir la clase de Jose Luis hoy?”
Although I was planning to make an appearance at my friend Jose Luis’ English class that afternoon, I responded, “No. Si voy, pero no voy a asistir.” thinking she was asking me if I was planning on helping her son teach the class.
This thoroughly confused Mari, who spoke no English and had many, many virtues — none of which was patience, because “asistir” in Spanish means “attend.” There’s a strong chance I further confounded her by saying something like, “Si. Voy a attender us clase, pero no voy a asistir.” (“Attender” in Spanish sort of means to “help” someone, but I was using it completely out of context.)
The concept of “False Friends” applies here due to Patterson’s relationship with Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. Patterson played for Smith, and he was one of the more notable free agent signings in the 2024 off season.
The Steelers also signed Van Jefferson and MyCole Pruitt, two other players with a productive history from their time playing under Arthur Smith.
Pruitt almost certainly cost Connor Heyward snaps, but failed to deliver much on the field. Van Jefferson was not only a substandard NFL WR No. 2 by today’s standards, he was badly outclassed by other lackluster Steelers WR No 2’s from yesteryear such as Charles Lockett and Derek Hill. (Dwight Stone looked like a Pro Bowler compared to Jefferson.)
- The Steelers signed Patterson due to his kick-returning prowess.
However, the Steelers got no spark from their kick return game in 2024, despite the rule changes and despite Patterson’s pedigree. Bringing Patterson to camp still made sense to this scribe, given how well he ran during limited duty against the Raiders and Colts.
But he got injured at Indianapolis and never got back on track. Giving him one last chance seemed to be a no brainer, low-risk risk high-reward move.
When a coach arrives at a new team, the idea of bringing some of his former players into the fold to recapture old magic can often be irresistible. Sometimes, as then rookie coach Mike Tomlin found out with Allen Rossum and Sean Mahan in 2007 they don’t always work out.
But there’s a flip side to this story:
A year later the Steelers signed Mewelde Moore who was the Unsung Hero of the 2008 season and delivered a critical block freeing Ben Roethlisberger to find Santonio Holmes in Super Bowl XLIII.
Fortunately, former players don’t always turn out to be “False Friends.”
