Broncos CEO Dishes on Why GM George Paton Hasn't Been Fired
According to GM George Paton, everyone at Denver Broncos HQ is on notice.
On the heels of arguably the most disappointing season in team history, the Broncos fired first-year head coach Nathaniel Hackett 15 games in, which was followed by the dismissal of special teams coordinator Dwayne Stukes and offensive line coach Butch Barry.
From there, the Broncos cut 2020 third-round cornerback Michael Ojemudia and practice squad running back Devine Ozigbo. Everyone is walking on eggshells right now at Dove Valley as interim head coach Jerry Rosburg assumes command for these final two games.
"As I told the players and our staff yesterday, we’re all being evaluated," Paton said Tuesday alongside Broncos CEO and owner Greg Penner. "Our record this year, and especially our performance on Sunday, is not what we’re about. Sunday’s game was unacceptable. It was embarrassing for everyone associated with this team. It’s nowhere close to our standard."
Paton is, of course, referencing the Broncos' pitiful Christmas Day performance that saw the four-win Los Angeles Rams emerge victorious 51-14. Penner admitted that the Broncos' utter lack of poise and discipline was the straw that broke the camel's back, hastening ownership's decision to fire Hackett now instead of at season's end.
But where does Paton stand among all the heads rolling out of UCHealth Training Center? After all, he was the impetus for the Hackett hire last January and the tectonic trade with Seattle that saw Denver relinquish multiple first and second-round picks, along with a trio of players, to Seattle in exchange for quarterback Russell Wilson.
Penner revealed that he's still confident in Paton as the team's general manager, but his wings have been clipped. The new head coach who eventually succeeds Hackett in Denver will no longer answer to Paton, but instead, ownership.
"George and I have had the chance to get to know each other," Penner said. "We talk every day since we purchased the team a number of months ago. He acknowledged right up front that there were a couple of decisions that haven’t worked out as he had expected, but I understand his thought process. He understands the work that needs to be done in this offseason, and I’m going to rely on him heavily as we go through and make these changes.”
Again, though. While the next head coach will be expected to work hand-in-glove with Paton, he won't answer to him.
“The new head coach will report to me, which is a more typical structure in the NFL," Penner said. "Obviously, the relationship between the general manager and the head coach is a critical one. George is going to be intimately involved with this process of looking for a new head coach, and we will make sure that there’s a good fit there.”
Paton has been lauded for his personnel moves, especially in the NFL draft. Paton's free-agent/veteran acquisitions in his two years at the helm haven't been as successful. Paton's first draft pick as GM was cornerback Patrick Surtain II, who was selected at No. 9 overall in 2021, and just earned his first Pro Bowl berth as a second-year player.
The albatross around Paton's (and the team's) neck is the Wilson situation. After coughing up premium assets to acquire him from Seattle, which mortgaged the next two years, and signing him to a $245 million extension, Wilson went on to produce a staggeringly bad first season in Denver.
It's so bad that many analysts believe Wilson is completely washed up. That he's unfixable. Both Paton and Penner professed a belief — even if it might be wishful thinking — that Wilson is not fatally broken and can be fixed. But it'll take the right head coach hire.
"That’s not why we’re getting a new coach—to turn around Russ," Paton said. "It’s about the entire organization. It’s about the entire football team. It’s not just one player. It’s not whether Russ is fixable or not, but we do believe he is. We do.”
Time will tell how this all plays out for Paton, but it's clear that his leash has been shortened significantly. Some insiders speculate that Paton's future in Denver depends on which head coach candidate the Walton/Penner ownership group covets.
If the Broncos' No. 1 candidate has his own ideas on the GM position, or wishes to have final say on personnel decisions, it could make Paton expendable. I doubt it, though, as that next head coach will know going in that Paton is not his boss, but more his partner.
Let's not forget that Paton has a great reputation around the NFL as a personnel guy. The coaches Denver talks to for this vacancy will likely consider Paton's presence as an attractive draw to the job.
No doubt, Paton got it wrong on Hackett. But it's hard to fault him for making the Wilson trade. After all, he was acquiring a 33-year-old quarterback with nine Pro Bowls on his resume entering his 11th NFL season.
The Seahawks were ready to get out of the Wilson business, but even they could not have predicted the depths of how deeply the Super Bowl XLVIII champion would regress in Year 1 as a Bronco. Nobody saw that coming.
That's why Paton survives, for now. And why he'll likely get one more year to prove to the Broncos' new owners that he's the right guy to shoulder the GM mantle moving forward.
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