That said, arguing with myself now, Patterson's been more effective on a per-snap basis than Hogan over his career. Patterson's played 2,020 regular season snaps whereas Hogan's played 2,680. For Patterson, that's 0.80 receiving yards and 1.03 yards from scrimmage per snap; for Hogan it's 0.78 and 0.79 respectively. Of course, you would need a finer-toothed comb to know how many of those plays were running plays versus routes run; PFF has the routes run data but it's in their premium section and I ain't paying for that.
Patterson's been effective his whole career as a part-time player so there's no reason to think he couldn't be again in New England, especially playing with the best quarterback he ever has.
Interesting thought, actually, in drawing a distinction between full-time and part-time players, especially applied to the pass receivers.
Using seat-of-the-pants percentages to make that distinction ...
In 2016, the (non-RB) pass receivers who might be considered "full time" (80%+ of the snaps in the majority of games played) were pretty much:
Edelman
Bennett
Hogan (when Gronk was injured)
In 2017, it was:
Cooks
Gronk
Hogan (when Hogan was healthy)
All the rest of the of the pass receivers (Amendola, Mitchell) were effectively "part-timers" (~ 65% of the snaps or less, most of the time). Mitchell got a bump in % near the end of 2016 when Amendola was out with an injury (ankle, I think).
So, I wonder ... If Gronk had been healthy in 2016 and Edelman healthy in 2017, would that have knocked Hogan down to a "part time" role? Or, would they have run sets with 3 WRs + Gronk more frequently (2 WR + 2 TE in 2016)?
So, looked at from this perspective, especially with Amendola gone, Patterson seems like a decent candidate for the top "part timer" role, just below (or perhaps even tied with) Hogan.
