In perhaps the most poignant moment of Mike Zimmer's post-Bears game press conference (besides him choking up when talking about Xavier Rhodes), he paused a long time when responding to a question about Cordarrelle Patterson. He appeared to squelch the desire to answer with his heart and answered with his head.

"I've got a plan for this offseason for him and hopefully it works, but it's going to be up to Cordarrelle. I'll leave it at that," Zimmer said, and then ended the press conference.

For every person who saw it, there seemed to be plenty that went unsaid. Patterson, a Zimmer doghouse dweller for much of the 2015 season, got on the field as a receiver on Sunday against the Bears and let a pass bounce off his hands that was picked off and nearly returned for a Chicago touchdown. Patterson never got back in the offense the rest of the game and has probably been thinking about that play and his coach's quote ever since.

"You hear it just like I did," Patterson told reporters Monday morning of Zimmer's offseason plan. "He said he has a plan, and we want to try to stick to that plan. When I leave here, I have to go talk to the coach, just talk to him about the offseason and see how they want things and see how it's going to go so we can take full advantage of that."

The offseason for Patterson started when the Bears game ended on Sunday. He can put 2014 behind himself and move forward, and we can safely assume he wants to do so.

"It wasn't the year I wanted, like I had last year," Patterson said of the 2014 season. "I feel like last year was a good year for me, and I felt like I was going to come back and capitalize off that. Week 1, you know, things were good. But after that, it just started going downhill. I blame myself for everything. I need to just take full advantage of the offseason and get better."

Maybe I have the visions of past diva wide receivers still dancing in my head--Cris Carter, Randy Moss and Percy Harvin, for instance—receivers who never were afraid to voice their thoughts in very loud and disruptive ways. But I give Patterson credit for not having blown a gasket to this point. Granted he doesn't have the track record on the field of those other receivers, even though he looked like he was heading in that direction after his rookie year, but to see Charles Johnson from the scrap heap pass him by and Adam Thielen replace him on Sunday and score a touchdown, can't do much for your psyche—especially when you are used to success.

"It really don't tell me anything," Patterson said in response to a question about Johnson's ascension. "Charles is a great guy. I just want to work with him each day and talk to him all the time. He's a good guy. Coming in, he had a rough start his first couple years. Then he come in here and showed the coaches that he is a good person and a good guy, on and off the field. So coaches love guys like that, and we all respect Charles around here. I hope he'll be here for many years, just like we all hope we'll be here for many years and work with each other."

Passed by Johnson and yanked for Thielen, so where does Patterson go next? Zimmer said it is up to Cordarrelle, and Patterson sounds like he got the message and wants to put in the time to get better.

"I'll get with our quarterback. Wherever Teddy goes, I feel like I'm going to go work with him for a couple weeks," Patterson said. "Just try to get on the same page with each other and take full advantage of the offseason. We just have to get on the same page and take full advantage of it."

Patterson plans to call his position coach George Stewart often during the offseason, communicate with Scott and Norv Turner, or get with Bridgewater, whatever it takes to improve.

"Whoever. Just work with them, whoever it be," he said. "If it has to be in Minnesota or back in South Carolina, somewhere. Just to work with them, make sure that I get everything done, how Coach Turner wants to run his offense."

If you read between the lines of everything that was said and done this season in respect to Patterson, it seems the problem is him not knowing the offense well enough and not putting in enough time to get that done.

It speaks to who Zimmer is as a coach that he will be in your corner (he has often said how much he wants Patterson to succeed), but he will not put you on the field if he doesn't feel you can do the job he wants done. And this past season, Patterson didn't prove he could.

"I feel like you've got to prove yourself day in and day out," Patterson said. "Each day, you wake up every morning, you have to prove yourself. This offseason is going to be a challenge for me, coming off a bad year like I had this year. It wasn't as good as I wanted, or fans and everybody else wanted. So this [coming] year I feel like it's going to be a challenge just coming back, just [homing] it in, trying to get things done."

It may be a challenge, but now is the time for Patterson to rise to it. Zimmer is giving him every chance to figure it out. He's got a plan for him—"but it's going to be up to Cordarrelle." And the time is now--maybe now or never with the Vikings.

Head over to Vikings Journal and check out Arif Hasan's piece on Teddy Bridgewater's season and then join in the conversation on the Vikings Journal forums, where everything Purple is dissected and discussed.

Joe Oberle is a senior writer at VikingsJournal.com, covers the NFL for The Sports Post and is managing editor of Minnesota Golfer magazine. He is an author and longtime Minnesota-based writer.