Tennessee football: Cordarrelle Patterson ties NFL record

Former Tennessee football Volunteers wide receiver stood out on Monday Night Football.

Cordarrelle Patterson needed just one year in the SEC to earn first-team All-Conference honors as a member of the 2012 Tennessee football team. Monday night, on ESPN, the former JuCo prospect from Hutchinson Community College took a step closer to NFL history.

During the opening second-half kickoff of last night’s contest between the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears, Patterson fielded a drive five yards deep in his own end zone before returning it for a 105-yard score. It was his first of the season and the eighth of his career, tying him with Leon Washington and Josh Cribbs for the most in NFL history.

In Patterson’s second season with the Bears, he’s compiled 242 yards from scrimmage on 19 receptions and 41 carries, using his versatility to fill roles anywhere head coach Matt Nagy needs him. It was his combination of size and speed that the Minnesota Vikings took notice of in 2013 when they drafted Patterson with the No. 29 selection in the first round of the NFL Draft.

After a successful four-year start to his NFL career in Minneapolis, Patterson spent one-year stints with the Oakland Raiders in 2017 and the New England Patriots in 2018. He signed with Chicago on the heels of a Super Bowl championship in 2018.

“Flash” as fans and fellow NFL players call him, has been an asset to the kick return game on every NFL squad he’s been a part of. He currently leads the league with 757 kick return yards and led all NFL kick returners with 825 yards in 2019. Here’s a kick-off return touchdown he returned in 2018, the same year he won Super Bowl LII with New England.

If Patterson finds the end zone on one more kick return, he’ll be in sole possession of most all-time on the NFL leaderboard, which would beg the question; is he the greatest kick returner of all-time? We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it, but it’s hard to deny Patterson is in some pretty elite company right now.

Cordarrelle Patterson wasn’t the only former Tennessee football standout that made waves in the NFL’s Week 10.

After going undrafted in the 2020 NFL draft, Marquez Callaway signed with the New Orleans Saints as a free agent and has put together a nice rookie season thus far. He’s caught 15 passes for 136 yards all year, but on special teams, he recovered two fumbles in the Saints’ 27-13 win over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

Suiting up with him in the same locker room is former Tennessee football running back Alvin Kamara. An asset to fantasy owners across the country since his rookie year in 2017, Kamara continued his strong 2020 campaign. He rushed for two and caught one touchdown in the Saints’ Week 10 victory

UT all-time sacks leader and now Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive end Derek Barnett registered three solo tackles and a sack against the Giants. Cameron Sutton finished Week 10 with five solo tackles and a forced fumble for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Already more than halfway through the 2020 Tennessee football season, time is running out for the few UT upperclassmen to prove they too deserve to play on Sundays next year. Nobody knows who the next Vols superstar in the NFL will be. However, even in a bad decade, plenty of players from the 2010s are still managing to make a splash in the pros.