Vikings wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson played just three snaps on offense in the 31-13 victory over the Panthers on Sunday, but Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer downplayed any sort of riff between the two.
Zimmer once again reiterated Patterson was used sparingly because he missed two practices to attend a funeral last week. Charles Johnson made his second consecutive start over Patterson, who didn't receive his first snap until the second half.
"I'm going to keep saying this over and over until somebody believes me, I am in this guy's corner," Zimmer said. "The biggest thing for me is that, 'We don't want him in there, we don't want to do this or we don't want to do that.' That's ridiculous. I want every one of our players to be good and be great. We all want instant gratification, including myself, but sometimes it takes a little bit longer than it does."
Zimmer said it would benefit himself, and the football team, if Patterson became a great player but notes that might not happen right away. He used previous examples of players used sparingly during his tenure as the Bengals defensive coordinator that turned out to become great players after they were groomed at the start of their careers.
"I feel that way about Cordarrelle," Zimmer said. "He's going to be a good player. I don't have any doubts in my mind."
Patterson was gone from Tuesday-Thursday for the funeral he attended, Zimmer said, and returned to practice on Friday. He had suffered a knee injury against the Packers and the walkthrough was the first opportunity the Vikings had to see how his knee progressed. Zimmer said Patterson looked all right and his limited usage wasn't injury related.
"It's hard to get involved too much in the game when you're missing that much time," Zimmer said. "…We make this thing out to be way bigger than what it is. Wanna talk about Teddy?"
