Broncos are a mess and the buck stops with Paton
The Broncos are the mess that general manager George Paton made, under the mistaken impression that hugs equal leadership and team chemistry can be bought.
From hiring coach Nathaniel Hackett, who does nothing well except let players skip practice on Thanksgiving, to prematurely handing quarterback Russell Wilson a $ 245 million contract extension before he threw a pass that mattered in Denver, Paton has committed major blunders that have shoved a long- suffering franchise deeper into a cycle of losing.
And know the crazy part? On a team that talks about accountability but seldom takes responsibility for bad football, it was left to Melvin Gordon to speak the inconvenient truth. Gordon, a fumble- prone running back who had no business being a member of the Broncos this season, sees the problem with this team more clearly than Paton does.
“We’ve got to find a way to play with more heart for each other,” Gordon said in a somber Denver locker room after a disheartening 22- 16 overtime loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
Gordon was conducting a pity party for himself as sad as Denver’s 3- 7 record. His latest costly fumble at the Las Vegas goal line, the one that finally got him cut from the team less than 24 hours later, wasn’t the main reason Gordon was so bad for the Broncos and Paton was foolish to bring him back to the team on a one- year contract with a base salary of $ 2.5 million.
It’s nuts to pay that much money for a self- absorbed athlete whose me- first attitude wasn’t worth two cents. Although Gordon’s fumble was the turning point of a game the Broncos had led 10- 0 against the Raiders, he talked about the miscue with self- pity rather than taking responsibility for another inexcusable defeat. “I’m not going to put that burden on my back,” Gordon said. “It just stinks because I got taken out of the game.”
What Paton has built here is a culture of me, me, me. He is a scout by training, adept at identifying all the measurables that make a hot draft prospect, but Paton is too often blind to the crucial nuances that bind together a winning team.
Acquiring Wilson in a trade so expensive the Broncos could not afford it to be a failure was a worthy gamble, even with the 20/ 20 hindsight that has revealed Wilson to be a quarterback who can’t find open receivers and seems afraid to run out of trouble.
But here is where the Broncos were dead wrong. They not only paid a king’s ransom for Wilson, they crowned him monarch of Broncos Country before he did
anything to merit such allencompassing power. The team gave him a private office. Hackett treated him with the deference of a little brother rather than a coach worthy of respect. And, worst of all, Paton got worked by agent Mark Rodgers for a contract that now feels like a solid gold albatross hanging from the franchise’s neck.
The Broncos are not a team. They are the fiefdom of the Great and Powerful RW3, a relationship that doesn’t work if the emperor has no clothes.
While drafting cornerback Pat Surtain II was a smart move in the 2021 NFL draft, Paton has botched his major decisions since, including the inexplicable five- year, $ 70 million deal given to Randy Gregory, a 30- yearold outside linebacker with 18.5 career sacks and a long history of being unable to stay on the field.
Hackett can preach accountability, but if the best- paid players on the team don’t earn their money it undercuts the idea that winning together counts more than getting yourself paid.
Loss after loss, the bewildered looks in the downcast eyes throughout the Denver locker room shout that these players don’t really have a clue how to win at the NFL level.
“Not to sound like a broken record,” safety Justin Simmons says over and over again, “but everybody wants to point the blame. The blame is all- around.”
The parting shot of Gordon on the last day he wore a Broncos uniform rings uncomfortably true. “Mentally, too much stuff is getting in the way of who we are as players,” he said. “And we’ve got some great players.”
What Paton has assembled is talent that Hackett is incapable of molding into a selfless, successful unit. While that makes Hackett the wrong coach for the Broncos, he’s also stuck with too many of the wrong guys to break this seven- year cycle of losing in Denver.
Saying goodbye to Hackett, a good dude over his head as an NFL coach, seems to be a no- brainer. But all the real tough questions by ownership that spent $ 4.65 billion on this football franchise should be left in the inbox on the desk of Paton, who made this mess.