If the Baltimore Ravens kick to him Sunday, Cordarrelle Patterson vows to make them regret it. If they don’t, well, the Vikings wide receiver and return specialist figures he’ll come up with something else.

The NFL’s leading returner with a 34-yard average, Patterson didn’t have a single kickoff come his way in Sunday’s 23-20 overtime win over Chicago. Three were touchbacks, and twice the Bears kicked short.

“If they kick to me, I just got to make them pay for it,” Patterson said. “(Last week), I couldn’t get no kickoffs. So this week it’s payback. I’ve got to be me, man. I don’t like going a week without catching a kickoff return. It makes me feel bad, so this week is going to be a good week for me.”

So what will Patterson do if the Ravens make a concerted effort to deny him the ball?

“Whatever they do, we’re going to have a plan,” he said. “We’re going to see this week what Chicago did, and I know Baltimore, they’re going to try to do the same thing. So I know me and (special-teams coach Mike Priefer), we’re going to sit down and just do some extra things in practice and watch a bunch of film. … We always have secret stuff in our sleeves.”

Maybe it will be on a kickoff return; maybe it won’t. But don’t be surprised if the Vikings have something special in place for Patterson, their rookie playmaker who is getting better each week.

Against the Bears, it was lining up Patterson at tailback; he took a pitch and scored on a 33-yard run.

“We’d been working on that run since Week 2,” Patterson said. “Whatever it’s time to bring it out, we expect the good weapons to come out.”

Early in the season, Patterson probably wasn’t ready for increased responsibility. But coach Leslie Frazier has seen Patterson, the No. 29 pick in April’s draft out of Tennessee, mature.

Patterson caught a career-high eight passes at Green Bay on Nov. 24. Then came the touchdown run against the Bears.

“The fact we were able to put him in the backfield and do something different with him as opposed to just line him up outside, that shows how much he’s grown — and also how much confidence we have that he’ll be able to handle more as we go forward,” Frazier said.

Enjoying Patterson’s increased role is Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who watched as the team’s other big-play threat, wide receiver Percy Harvin, was traded last spring to Seattle. But now Patterson is showing an ability to fill Harvin’s role.

“It’s exciting, man,” Peterson said. “The more weapons, the more potent you can be offensively, and it feels good any time someone else is making a play or getting in the end zone. It makes me feel wonderful. And he’s a young guy with young talent, and I’m just looking forward to see how much he continues to grow.”

Even when he wasn’t getting a lot of snaps from scrimmage, Patterson said he never got frustrated and knew his time would come. But he wasted no time in becoming one of the NFL’s most electrifying kickoff returners.

Patterson returned one 105 yards for a touchdown in his second NFL game, Sept. 15 at Chicago. Then he set an NFL record with a 109-yard return for a TD on Oct. 27 against Green Bay.

With last week’s run, he became the first Minnesota rookie to score touchdowns three different ways in a season. He had caught a 2-yard scoring pass Nov. 7 against Washington.

“It’s great,” said Patterson, who has 30 catches for 254 yards. “At Tennessee, I scored four different ways. The other was a punt return. I’m just showcasing myself. You’ve seen all the special things I can do. We’ve got four games left; you never know what can happen. You never know what we have up our sleeve.”

Patterson hasn’t returned any punts this season but is willing to defer to cornerback Marcus Sherels, third in the NFL with a 13.1 average. Patterson was asked if throwing a TD pass could be in the cards.

“I can sling it about 80 yards,” he said.

For now, though, the Vikings are most concerned about getting Patterson’s hands on some kickoff returns.

“I really thought Chicago would kick to him,” Priefer said. “I was hoping they would, of course. … We’re trying to match what other people do to us, and it’s kind of a chess match. It’s kind of fun, but I’d rather them kick it deep to our big guy.”

Don’t count on it. Ravens coach John Harbaugh earlier this week called the rookie a “potential game-wrecker.”

Follow Chris Tomasson at twitter.com/christomasson.