Bottom Line

Patterson lost work to Tyler Allgeier in 2022 and then watched his team draft a stud RB eighth overall. He’s likely to get minimal work without an injury to Bijan Robinson or Allgeier.

The best case for Patterson would be a trade to a RB-needy team at some point.

What We Learned Last Year

• Patterson’s workload rebounded from a late-2021 downturn … and then declined again.
• He claimed 51% of the team’s rushing attempts over the first three games, averaging 16.3 per contest. But then a knee injury knocked him out of Week 4 and cost him the next four games.
• Patterson garnered just 29.6% of Falcons carries the rest of the way, ceding work to fifth-round rookie Tyler Allgeier. The gap grew after the Week 14 bye, with Allgeier claiming 56% of carries vs. Patterson’s 25.5% over the final four games.
• Patterson also saw his receiving work cut in half, from 3.3 receptions per game in his first Falcons season to just 1.6 in 2022. Team passing volume dipped, but so did Patterson’s target share. He went from 12.8% of targets over his 16 games in 2021 to just 9.8% over 12 healthy games in 2022.
• Patterson’s yards per catch also tumbled, from 10.5 to 5.8. And he went from 5 TD catches in 2021 to 0 last season. He did, at least, score a career-high 8 TDs on the ground.
• Pro Football Focus graded a big decline in Patterson’s receiving performance in 2022 but also a large improvement in his rushing performance. Patterson ranked 16th in run grade among 61 RBs with 70+ carries (playoffs included).
• He boosted his yards after contact per carry and missed tackles forced per carry, though his elusive rating proved nearly identical to his 2021 number – and ranked just 40th among those 61 RBs.

What to Expect in 2023

• Bijan Robinson is taking over this backfield. The only question will be how much he leaves for the other guys.
• Patterson’s 2022 role shrinkage doesn’t bode well for this fall, which will be his age-32 season.
• Patterson is likely to be the team’s third-best runner this fall, after Allgeier beat him in efficiency as a rookie and siphoned carry share as the year wore on.
• The Patterson of 2021 could have been a receiving factor on a team with little beyond TE Kyle Pitts, WR Drake London, and the RBs. But his decline in both usage and efficiency in that area bodes ill as well.