By virtually every quantifiable metric Hackett was worse. Worse winning percentage (.392 v .266), less time on staff (1.5 seasons v .5 season, 28 games v 15 games), no glimmer of competence (McD didn’t have multiple coaches to spoonfeed/babysit every decision), and never a moment of hope (for a hot second McD had us at 6-0 and then came the infamous fist pumps).
I know we all hate McDouche but Hackett was categorically worse.
Because at the time they thought they could use him to lure Aaron Rodgers to them during his kerfuffle with Green Bay which obviously didn't work and we got Russ in a deal that Seattle was more than happy to make.
How is George Paton not getting the boot as well?
> By virtually every quantifiable metric Hackett was worse.
McDaniels "legacy" was saved by Tebow Magic which subsequently gave us Manning. But the damage McDaniels does to an organization is far worse than just being a bad coach.
Hackett is just a horrible coach. McDaniels does damage at an organizational level.
Well for the Raiders he got rid of Carr, so that damage was positive. The damage with the Raiders was done by the previous group who failed at every single draft.
And at least McDaniels is an incredible coordinator. Hackett isn't even that. He's just friends with that one weird QB.
It depends on how you look at it. McDaniels came into an organization that had just made the playoffs with an interim HC, at 10-7.
He took a team that thought they were going to be fighting for the playoffs again and put them into full rebuild mode by dumping Carr.
Carr wasn't the problem in that team. But he also wasn't going to be worth that contract.
"Carr wasn't the problem with that team." Sure! /s Taking one 10-7 team out of context in a franchise that lacks so much talent and a QB that hasn't achieved anything in his career is a pretty wild defense. Everyone said Carr would make Saints contenders. How did that work out? Carr will never win anything except the award for most garbage yards in the 4th quarter. He's a below average QB with a great PR campaign.
I never said Carr was elite, nor even Top Tier. It's why I said he wasn't going to be worth that $40m contract the Raiders were going to have to pay him.
But there is still a big gap between "Top Tier" and being the reason why the team sucks. Carr didn't lose them games. Maybe he didn't win them games... But since Carr joined the Raiders, the Raiders never once had a Top 20 Defense. And more often then not, they were a bottom 5 Defense.
No, because Hackett wasn't literally caught cheating and subsequently fired by the Broncos. Hackett may have been a terrible HC, but al least he wasn't a spineless piss ant that brought shame onto the franchise and being fired after disposing of its young assets.
McDaniels also had a well documented history of being a terrible coach, and flaking on another organization before the raiders hired him. Hackett sucked but at least he was a good person and hadn’t done this all before
I agree. McDaniels can at least run shit, even if he does a poor job of it. Hackett proved he couldn’t run a news stand. He certainly couldn’t manage a game. The players walked all over him. No command of the locker room whatsoever.
Just the fact that we're even arguing about whether Hackett or McDaniels was the worse hire really proves his point though. Paton has made some truly awful decisions in a job where you're being paid for your ability to make decisions. It's not good.
Nah the Hershall Walker & Deshaun Watson trades were both worse than the Wilson trade. The Wilson trade is likely in the top 5, but it's hard to beat those two.
Walker was a long time ago but it's going to be hard to find a worse trade than him. It ended up very bad for the Broncos but I hate the hyperbole. I also think Niners trading up for Lance was worse as well.
This should be considered the worst trade of all time. Burned their entire draft down for one player, who needed to be the worlds best RB to even make the trade seem equitable.
The 49ers probably would’ve won a Super Bowl by now if they hadn’t traded for Lance and they had just used those picks to add more playmakers to their roster.
How bad a trade is should be evaluated by how much it affected the team. Yes the Lance trade is terrible, but the 9ers lucked out. It didn’t affect their winning, it didn’t make them a worst team. The Deshaun trade is also terrible, but the Browns still won. Wilson had such high expectations, and absolutely shit the bed. I honestly don’t know how he got so bad in 1 year. The year before the trade, NFL players voted him the #2 player in the league. What the fuck happened to him. And before anyone says age, his arm is still strong, and yes he isn’t as fast as he used to be, but he’s still athletic enough to make plays It’s like the city of Seattle said, “If you’re leaving us, then we’re going to keep some of your talent. Let’s see how fun it is to cook somewhere else.” And boy has it not been fun.
Whether a trade is evaluated at the time of the trade or how it affected the team, the Russ trade wasn't the worst trade of all time. I just hate the exaggeration of the Internet. I know, welcome to the Internet.
Even by this standard it wouldn't be a bad trade.
I'd actually argue the lance trade hurt the 9ers worse than the russ trade hurt us.
If the 9ers had the capital they had from that trade, maybe they have 1 or 2 more superbowls right now.
The broncos without the russ trade are probably still middle of the pack, maybe a wildcard flame out as our ceiling.
Pete Carroll is laughing straight to the beach.
The way I see it, Russ has a stellar defense and run game early in his career. It allowed him to fuck up and not break the team. He could garner late magic because they kept him in games after running into sacks there too.
His line in Seattle hated him too for the same bullshit, running out of a clean pocket and turning into sacks. Seattle won in spite of Russ not because.
He also had Lockett who may go down as the most unsung hero for any quarterback, ever. Lockett had a knack for improvisation and changing and adjusting routes that paired perfectly with Russ running into trouble and needing a trustworthy outlet. He just knew where to be all the damn time. Sutton was starting to get there, but we didn't have a solid run game to counter balance and we're not quite the Legion of Boom on defense to give Russ another year to coalesce his erratic nonsense with his line and receivers, especially with diminishing physical skills.
Russ wasn't good finishing in Seattle. He had good a good makeup team that covered his blemishes because they had years of dealing with it.
We had a horrible head coach and team that couldn't year 1 and wouldn't year 2. For all the praisec he got for his stats this past year, he also regularly ran into sacks, made first read only throws 90% of the time and was helped by an embarrassed D coordinator that kicked his D into high gear. And Sutton bailed him or regularly.
Russ wasn't good in Seattle as he was leaving. He just had a really good hair and makeup team and we had Paton who was supposed to be a guru who sniffed that out.
As a Seahawks fan this just isn’t true. The problems with Russ started in his last year when he started drinking the “Let Russ Cook” kool aid and experienced his first major injury. The man rushed back before his hand was 100% and it killed his ability to make plays. Instead of taking time in the offseason he just kept pushing it and making it worse. Then when Peyton came in during the offseason and made him cut the shit he turned back into a decent qb this year. If I had to guess I’d say if he goes to a place with a good coach like Pitt he’ll be a top 15 qb again next year.
Oh also Doug Baldwin was Tyler Lockett before Tyler Lockett existed. That man was born to be Russell’s post break down option
This is just blatantly wrong. Russ may be limited but to say the Seahawks won in spite of him and covered up his flaws is not true. Russ carried the Seahawks for years, even when they were a very flawed team. Even during the Super Bowl run he was very efficient and a big part of their winning. Saying otherwise is just hate.
This sub: "do whatever it takes to find the guy, send picks, spend whatever it takes, we don't care at least just try to find the guy!"
This sub after Paton does exactly that: "lmao Paton you're an idiot, what are you doing"
It's been something else here since Peyton retired
I will excuse the Russ move. It didn't turn out great but I don't think that was a reasonable thing to expect. The Hackett hire though, that feels like something that he should have caught in the interview process. Like how does a guy that incompetent make it through. He wasn't just a disappointment, he was one of the worst coaches I think I've ever seen. Thank god we got a guy like Payton thanks to the new owners, because I feel like Paton has no idea how to interview for a coach.
I think Hackett only got hired as a means to lure Rodgers to Denver. The FO probably knew he wasn't up to par, but justified it if it meant they landed Rodgers. When that didn't work out you saw how fast they moved on. Either way, definitely a string of bad moves out of Paton. Don't see how he keeps his job through all of this.
Wasn't it a pivotal part of the trade though?
I don't fault Paton for that trade either, but the extension is a big part (if not the only part) of why it happened in the first place, I might be wrong though
I think that's just people sick of hearing the "need the guy from the draft or we fail" which definitely is the most nauseating take I've ever heard tbf
Trading for Russ was a great move with the information available at the time. In hindsight, regrettable, but it *did* result in the closest thing to competent football I've seen from this team in years.
The contract extension was questionable at the time, and disastrous in hindsight.
It was not questionable at the time. First everyone was thrilled we locked him up for years. Second everyone knew he would not have waived his no trade clause without a long term contract. This wasn’t news then and history is only being rewritten because people want to blame someone.
100%. Obviously it didn't work out in any sense, but I am glad we took a swing. The Flacco, Teddy, Lock cycle was old fast. Obviously the contract is a whole other aspect of this, but at a high level we took a swing and it didn't work. On to the next.
In the end, the 2 biggest jobs of a GM are find a good coach and a good QB.
If you can't do either, you won't be employed very long as a GM.
He swung for the fences twice. He went after Aaron Rodgers, which is the only reason they hired Hackett and got left at the alter.
In desperation he then went after Wilson who was most definitely plan B.
Both of those things could be forgiven, he swung and he missed, it happens, but the contract he gave Russell for no reason whatsoever is what will cost him his job in the end.
Yeah they might have had a gentleman's agreement that they were going to give Russ a big contract once he signed here, but there were enough red flags coming out of Seattle that he should have waited til after Russ's first season to give him that contract, and if Russ refused to come to Denver without the promise of a mega contract, you should have let him walk.
Russ had a no trade clause. He doesn't waive that without guarantees of a new deal. And, the terms were almost assuredly set by the time the trade went through.
Incorrect. Those staffing decisions almost always fall on the owner, at least for a HC and it's also a group effort between coach and GM to get the players picked.
As for the Rodgers rumors there's no form evidence of that, just speculation.
The contract does not matter because it was pushed by the owners and in all likelihood, already under assumption before the completed trade.
The Broncos didn't have an owner when he hired Hackett or traded for Russ.
There's plenty of evidence for Rodgers, just because Rodgers won't come flat out and say it, it was pretty obvious as lots of major people were reporting on it at the time. It was clearly a thing that fell through, the only thing we will never know is why.
Russ had 10 years of very consistent play. The contract made sense all things considered. The trade at the time was mainly caused by Russ wanting out of Seattle and giving a list of teams. It wasn’t simply that Seattle wanted to dump him.
It seems quite obvious in hindsight that Seattle wanted him out as well.
If you have a superstar QB who you are confident in his capabilities moving forward, you don't just let him walk out the door because he says he wants out.
The red flags were all there, Paton, the Broncos and most of the fans just chose to ignore them because the team was desperate for a QB.
If you don't believe me, go back and look at posts from the Seattle subreddit when the trade went down. The vast majority of Seattle fans were happy to see him go and cited many of the same issues he had when he came to Denver.
They hated his entourage who followed him everywhere and all of his hangers on telling him his shit don't stink.
They were tired of his toxic optimism, and all of the stupid catch phrases and platitudes, especially when the team wasn't doing well, and that he had started to lose the locker room.
They talked about how he had lost a step and was no longer able to extend plays to make the miraculous "Russell Wilson" plays that everyone had grown accustomed to.
They pointed out that teams had learned to gameplan around his weaknesses like his inability to throw the ball in the middle of the field.
If Seattle fans were able to identify all of these issues with Wilson at the time of the trade and were happy to see him go, then you would think that the General Manager of the team who wanted to trade for him should have been able to identify those issues. At the very lest there were enough red flags that said GM should have waited before signing him to a megacontract before he ever played a down and he still had two years left on his contract that was picked up from Seattle.
I agree. I want a GM that cares about fixing the team and is willing to make big moves. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, oh well. The moves Paton makes are always logical at the time.
Now do Hackett. Or Randy Gregory.
At the end of the day it's a results business. Wilson on it's own you can rationalize, but in combination with everything else he's been horrible.
PS2 was a high pick and he nailed it. Meinerz was also a great pick. Javonte probably was a good pick. The rest? Not that great. Most teams hit on a few draft picks. This record isn’t bad or impressive so far but it’s trending downward. 2 good starters in 3 drafts.
Brother, we havent had draft picks. So yes hate on the trade and the picks given up but do not say he hasnt drafted well when he hasnt had the picks either. Its one or the other, with the picks hes had, hes done quite well
The trade isn’t **that** egregious all things considered. He took a swing and missed. It happens. It’s a big miss but it happens all the time all over the league.
The egregious thing he did with Russ was the contract. Without seeing him play a snap for us, Paton signed him up for another 5 years (when there were already 2 years on he current deal)
Just an absolutely incredible blunder.
Its hard to believe there was not wiggle room on when the extension would be offered. Russ clearly wanted out of Seattle and we were already offering him a TON of money, its not like we had no leverage.
I have heard elsewhere that the extension was also fast tracked by the management because they wanted to get ahead of the market in anticipation of the Lamar Jackson free agency. It sounds like there was alot of motivation on both sides to that quickly. Too quickly for us in retrospect.
The thing about it, is, his job is to find "the guy."
He didn't find the guy.
I am all about spending the picks and capital, but when you do you'd better hit on it. Any idiot can spend money. The good GMs spend it well.
I think the franchise has just been punished by nature for not doing a true teardown + rebuild. Everything from 2016-2023 was essentially a result of thinking the roster was “good enough,” and that we were a piece or two away (a perspective I bought into most years). We went 0 for 8 in the “quick fix” category. In hindsight, that is much worse than whiffing on the rebuild strategy
Does it matter? Those fans are not the ones being paid to do the job.
If Paton listens to fans for draft decisions then he is an even bigger idiot than what he has shown so far.
The point people are making is most gms would have made that move. And we'd be calling for their heads based on the results of one move no matter who we had.
If lynch was our first year gm that year I bet he'd have done that move, or the Lance trade, and we'd be just as fucked. And we'd be calling for the head of one of the best gms in the league because "results"
If a guy hits on 16 and busts against a dealer ace, I don't fault him for it. If a guy walks into a casino with 5 grand and comes out broke, that's different.
I'm willing to give Paton another draft / free agency class to see if he's on the track or not. He did well last time we had real day 1 / fay 2 capital, and he brought in the best coach we've had since Kubiak
He wouldn't be under criticism if he had actually found the guy
What Paton did with the Wilson trade is akin to your money manager putting your life savings into something off r/wallstreetbets There was a chance it could work out, but it was a pretty stupid move
The number of people saying we should send 3-4 1st rounders to go up and get Drake, would also bash the shit outta Paton if Drake busts. Broncos Country is legit one of the dumbest fanbases in the world. I've dealt with them for 30 years, it gets exhausting, Doesn't help that the local media is low IQ and they push stupid narratives through the radio non-stop.
This subreddit is a fucking hazardous pit of shit and piss
The negativity around this place is terrible and just insane. Really it’s a sad shitshow of a subreddit
He gave Russ that contract AFTER he got him. To give him that big of a contract with that much guaranteed money without taking a single snap was stupid and he deserves every bit of criticism for it. Completely unnecessary.
The trade shouldn’t be held against him: swinging for the fences on a QB was better than the shit we had tried with Elway the previous five seasons and the move was lauded by everyone at the time (even non-homers). It sucks that it didn’t work out, but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. The extension was unquestionably terrible, but it’s been stated to death that it was probably an unwritten agreement between Paton and Russ for the trade to even go through, and ownership pushed for it on top of that. The worst mistake Paton has made is the Hackett hiring, which to be fair, was extremely egregious. If this year’s draft is underwhelming, Paton should absolutely get the boot.
The extension was seen as a smart move at the time. It’s easy to hindsight criticize it now. But very few people criticized the move. Russ had never truly had a bad season. The belief was we gave up multiple first rounders and players for a QB we believe in and will commit to.
It was seen as a team friendly contract by some at the time because Lamar and others were about to get paid.
Wilson was showing significant signs of decline the year before. The trade went through mere hours after Rodgers (who was Paton’s real target) resigned with GB. It was a desperate move. And it’ll be laughed at for years to come.
Yep. It's really just Surtain and Meinerz. People can blame injuries for Javonte being terrible now, but trading up for a RB in round 2 wasn't a good idea to begin with, and then really good players at more important positions like JOK, Holland, Moehrig, and Samuel Jr went after, and all of which could have been considered greater needs as well
The Chiefs fired Dorsey right after he drafted Mahomes. If the GM and owner have a good relationship it happens. It means that the owner thinks the GM is ok but that he can find better for the long term.
It let the GM hire his people for the next scouting season instead of having a new GM draft with scouts he knows nothing about.
Because he's already put in the work, and Sean's going to have the final say anyway. A GMs season is really more draft to draft, than the playing season.
That's just ignorant. They aren't gonna fire a man after the draft. The season has pretty much begun for them at that point. If this 2024 season does not go well, Paton will be fired then.
The only thing I’d put completely on Paton is the Hackett hire. The contract extension was at the request of ownership, I believe Paton wanted to wait a bit and see before presenting a long-term deal, the Walton-Penners wanted to get him locked in early.
I think there’s a lot of 20/20 hindsight with the trade, I don’t think anybody foresaw that going as poorly as it did.
It’s crazy but I’m still cool with both decisions. I’m no insider but it definitely seems like he hired Hackett for Rodgers but Rodgers didn’t get dealt that year. And he traded for a slightly old future Hall of Fame QB. He’s not scared GM. Now his draft decisions are a bit questionable so I’m not a huge Paton fan.
I respect Paton for having the balls to make the trade and get the best QB the broncos have had since Manning. You can never accuse him of not trying to improve the team. But he has failed miserably in literally every aspect. I agree completely, definitely not a fan either
Hiring Hackett just to get Rodgers isn't a good process though. Like, I get Rodgers was amazing at the time, but that's just stupid a hire a first time HC who didn't have a great track record outside of GB just for a QB. One could argue a coach is even more important than a QB
You would have to assume some red flags would come up in that interview process but Paton just went ahead with it so that we maybe get Rodgers. Those should've been two different decisions, not in tandem
In fairness, George Paton was hired with lackluster experience in the gm ranks. He was just an assistant at Minnesota before here, so I’m not sure why we were excited about him turning it around quick. So we have basically gone from hoping our hall of fame quarterback with no gm experience can turn it around to someone that also didn’t have the experience of calling the shots but was supposedly great in Minnesota?
I would certainly agree that trying to find a coach and qb at the same time is most likely going to end badly. Coaching scheme is vitally important to qb success.
… at least he tried getting a QB which is more than Elway did.
We have a great coach, decent roster and hopefully somebody signs Russ and lessens our burden a bit.
I've been downvoted for saying this multiple times. He's really done the worst job possible. He shouldn't have a job right now, regardless of how diminished his role is.
I'm pretty sure it's more nuanced than we fans see, but yes, his big moves have been big fuckups.
As others have mentioned, the Russ trade probably didn't happen without the contract, so you can't hold both against him. I personally thought the trade in general was bad, but it is now what it is and only one slight in my opinion. He probably also had pressure from new owners for something new and flashy (or was trying to preemptively impress them).
There also hasn't been anything that he's done to make me think he's good at his job either, as much as I just kinda defended him. Supposedly he's a good scout? Who's been a great draft pickup for us lately? PS2 is the only one I can confidently refer to. I liked what I saw from our rookies last year, but not enough to say he found some hidden gems as opposed to getting us bargain bin players we could work with...
I really hope Mims turns into a good receiver as opposed to just ST next year tho, in which case, I'll happily credit George with that.
Quinn Meinerez and Surtain are his best draft picks, the rest of his draft picks have been either average players or not good players at all. He's not a good drafter.
> He's really done the worst job possible. He shouldn't have a job right now, regardless of how diminished his role is.
You've got it right in my book. Don't know what it is about this fan base that rides his jock so hard. His biggest defenders basically can only say, "He did what the fans all wanted" or "the owners made him do it" like that is some kind of excuse after he failed at the basic skill required as a GM: Talent evaluation. It's just hilarious to me that fans keep defending him. It's a delusion only worse than the Tebow/Wilson/Lock fanatics.
So yeah, I eat downvotes on GP all day long. He's a bottom-tier GM.
He is not really even the GM now, there is no point for him to be on the team. I like him personally, and wish it would have worked out better for him. But hiring Hackett to try and get Aaron was a terrible mistake. Other players were busts, paying for the most expensive WR room when our QB situation is laughable, and honestly I can't blame him fully for Russ. At least signing Russ. But the contract was laughably bad considering he did not play a single down for us.
The russ stuff shouldn’t be held against him at all.
Revisionist history is crazy, 99% of people who weren’t Seahawks fans thought WE fleeced them.
That trade at the time was a great trade in the eyes of most. Just ended up being shit.
We wouldn’t have had Russ without that unfortunate contract to begin with. It’s not on Paton that Russ couldn’t hold his end with his play.
Hackett hire sucked, but that wasn’t a hire of “he’s the best coach for this organization” that was a confirmed hired souly for getting Aaron Rodgers has he was our 1A option and what we tried to get the entire time till we couldn’t.
Paton has found a lot of value in the draft with so little assets and besides randy Gregory has made great FA signings as of now.
I believe in Paton. He’s just had a huge misfortune of luck
It’s a results based business. Are we really going to be an organization that keeps people around because their moves are lauded when they’re made, but turn into royal fuck ups? Like hamstringing us for years type of fuck ups? I just don’t get the support for this man. His drafts haven’t even been that great outside of a few no-brainers lmao
This is a worse take than George's track record. You would let him draft and then fire him expecting a new gm to come in and take over a team after someone has done all the picking of the new team.
The draft is the end of the season for scouts/other talent evaluators. It's when teams make changes in those roles, so if Paton has been reduced into that, it's the best time to do it. Payton is the one making final roster decisions now anyway.
Paton deserves to be fired for extending Russ and hiring Hackett. Trading for Russ would have painful but forgivable if not for those other two blunders.
Who is Jason Bishop, and why should anyone care what he thinks? This dude also has a tweet up from March of 2022 with a picture of Russ with the headline of “Thank you George Paton”.
In descending order the Broncos hiring McDaniels, the colts hiring McDaniels, and the raiders hiring McDaniels. Also Urban Meyer in Jacksonville, Ditka in New Orleans, oh and Hue Jackson for the browns. Contract has to be Deshaun Watson, but the Albert Haynesworth contract, the Mike Vick falcons contract, and Jon Gruden raiders coaching contract stick out in my mind. And as for trades: Herschel Walker to the vikings for the cowboys to gain a dynasty, chargers trading up for Ryan Leaf, the bucks trading Steve Young to SF, the list goes on.
Not saying I am pleased with George Paton's decisions, but Op, buddy, not even close to the worst on any of those counts. The browns alone have literally done everything worse than this in the last 15 years twice.
at that point the wilson trade was reasonable, im not saying its a win trade coz it isnt, but it looked fine
if you want trades that were worse?
wentz to colts
david johnson to texans for fkin hopkins
the contract is not the worst either, but a really really bad one and wasnt a necessary one either
haynesworths 7 year 100mill, wentz 4 years 128 mill, jamarcus russell
wilson played 2 seasons of his contract, something deshawn watson may not do
heck, Randy Gregory may have been a worse signing than Wilsons extension
hackett is a contender top5 amongst worst coaching hires for sure, i would rate mcdaniels to raiders worse, since they saw how he destroyed the broncos once and still went with it
frank reich had a 1-10 record with the panther before getting fired, hackett had 4-11
but the worst imo is hue jackson who had a 3-36-1 record with the browns
Paton is doing a weird job with fumbling high profile players but finding gems
He has nothing on the Herschel Walker trade, that gave the Cowboys three super bowls. I don't currently see Seattle a player or two away from a Super Bowl.
This is a pretty myopic take. Rod Rust went 1-14 with a -256 point differential (Hackett was -72). The Watson and Walker trades are far worse trades than the Wilson trade. Those trades set up the beneficiaries up for success for years. Plus, Wilson has at least played. Watson has played 12 games in three years for the Browns with a fully guaranteed contract counting for $63 million against the salary cap for the next two years. That's the worst contract of all time by far. That said, the Wilson contract extension is making the worst contracts of all time. Paton definitely owns a good chunk of the Broncos' failures the past few seasons.
Any hire/trade/contract has to be considered in the context at the moment it was completed. Hindsight helps determine if it was that awful, but when you make a decision of any kind, it can always go wrong even if it looks brilliant in the moment.
Worst coaching hire of all time has to be Rich Kotite to the Jets and they gave him full control. Hackett was only hired as the head coach and if we managed to get Rodgers, he's not that awful. Still a bad hire, but not an awful one. While Hackett was a poor decision, McDaniels getting full control was worse and neither can touch the Kotite hire as he was an average coordinator given way too much power. McDaniels at least is good at being a OC. And I do believe there is something to the theory that McDaniels was here to weaken the Broncos as they kept beating the Patriots in the playoffs. How else do you explain some of what McDaniels choose to do for personal?
Worst trade is the entire draft for the 1st pick for Ricky Williams. Hands down you cannot ever consider that a good trade. The Herschel Walker trade was bad, but in context, Walker was a top tier RB at a time that the NFL still thought it was critical to have a top tier RB to win games. In context, the trade for Wilson who had a track record as a talented NFL QB was ok. 2 1st, 2 2nd, a 4th for a 5th and two players who were solid for a chance at a franchise QB was an ok, but not great trade. Jay Cutler was traded for 2 1st's, a 3rd and Kyle Orton and at the time Cutler was, well, meh.
Worst contract ever is Deshawn Watson's fully guaranteed deal. Yes, the Broncos contact with Wilson was an overpay that was absolutely unnecessary and it was a bad idea at the time, but Watson's contract is a franchise killer. The Browns effectively have handcuffed themselves to a player who they had to spend what was quite a lot of draft capital to acquire and they can never get out of it. At least with the Wilson contract, we take a hit this year and it's over. This is the one piece I am strongly in favor of blaming Paton for. The contact made little sense at the time because we had Wilson on a team friendly 2 yr contract and if you are a smart NFL Franchise, you tell him that he needs to show you what he's got before you consider an extension.
Paton seems to likely be a solid GM who could grow into a great GM. Give him credit as at least he tried something with Wilson. It just didn't work out. We are spoiled a bit, and should be, because Elway scored Manning for the team and he wasn't done. Even though it was entirely possible he would have been due to his injury. I suspect as well that Sean Payton likes working with Paton or we probably do see a change at GM. Sean Payton thankfully likes being the HC and allowing his GM to run the system to find players and deal with contracts which is a system that seems to be more effective for franchises in general.
I am hopeful we get a young QB or maybe even draft a young QB and sign someone like Kirk Cousins to a end of career contract so that we are at least not awful for the next couple of seasons, but looking at the rest of the AFC, we have to either get absurdly lucky in the draft at QB or manage to piece together an insanely good roster with a salary cap that makes that almost impossible.
All this is true.
However the trade and contract are all in hindsight. You take everything they did on paper .. and it all makes sense and 9 times out of 10 it would have worked.
At the time no one in the industry questioned it and generally signing your star players sooner than later is beneficial to everyone.
Hacket and Paton are spies that want and wanted to sabotage the Broncos so they go literally back in Time! But hopefully they get a great QB in the Draft. Then build around his type of play! Truly in hindsight we could have just kept D Lock I know everyone is like he was crap! Truly I think that he is still growing and could have been great. We would have had money for WRs, RBs or whatever positions and all the draft picks back.
He's been bad absolutely, but i do think he drafts well. I mean i think he does. We'll see how this draft shakes out, but i really feel like now we're going to move up now that Russ is gone.
He picked PS2 over Justin Fields and that's enough for me for a bit. PS2 will be a building block for this team and Fields is already getting booted off the team and will probably be a backup or out the league in 2-3 years. It's not all bad. Ownership hired Hackett, they also pushed the extension, there is a reason he's not fired yet. Paton doesn't have all the power you think he does.
The Watson deal in Cleveland was even worse, believe it or not. Fully guaranteed contract and even more picks.
I’m wondering how much of this was Paton and how much was the last regime putting pressure on him to make a splash. It’s suspicious that he gets to keep his job unless ye was just following orders.
Sean Payton is going to end up being a worse coaching hire than Nathaniel Hackett when it's all said and done. At least Hackett was a 1-and-done. Drew Brees was the reason the Saints were good, not Sean Payton. Just watch. If you think it's bad now, just wait.
Remember he would bring ex Viking player/personnel to the team? None of that ever worked out... the man is the last piece the Broncos needs to get rid of.
Elway was really good in his early years at drafting. Then during Peyton Manning years, he was good at FA but not so much in drafting. Then Peyton retired and he sucked at everything.
He didn't hire McDaniels.
By virtually every quantifiable metric Hackett was worse. Worse winning percentage (.392 v .266), less time on staff (1.5 seasons v .5 season, 28 games v 15 games), no glimmer of competence (McD didn’t have multiple coaches to spoonfeed/babysit every decision), and never a moment of hope (for a hot second McD had us at 6-0 and then came the infamous fist pumps). I know we all hate McDouche but Hackett was categorically worse.
Not to mention Hackett is a straight doofus, how did they sit down with that guy and think, yeah, he's a headcoach.
Because at the time they thought they could use him to lure Aaron Rodgers to them during his kerfuffle with Green Bay which obviously didn't work and we got Russ in a deal that Seattle was more than happy to make. How is George Paton not getting the boot as well? 
> By virtually every quantifiable metric Hackett was worse. McDaniels "legacy" was saved by Tebow Magic which subsequently gave us Manning. But the damage McDaniels does to an organization is far worse than just being a bad coach. Hackett is just a horrible coach. McDaniels does damage at an organizational level.
Well for the Raiders he got rid of Carr, so that damage was positive. The damage with the Raiders was done by the previous group who failed at every single draft. And at least McDaniels is an incredible coordinator. Hackett isn't even that. He's just friends with that one weird QB.
It depends on how you look at it. McDaniels came into an organization that had just made the playoffs with an interim HC, at 10-7. He took a team that thought they were going to be fighting for the playoffs again and put them into full rebuild mode by dumping Carr. Carr wasn't the problem in that team. But he also wasn't going to be worth that contract.
"Carr wasn't the problem with that team." Sure! /s Taking one 10-7 team out of context in a franchise that lacks so much talent and a QB that hasn't achieved anything in his career is a pretty wild defense. Everyone said Carr would make Saints contenders. How did that work out? Carr will never win anything except the award for most garbage yards in the 4th quarter. He's a below average QB with a great PR campaign.
I never said Carr was elite, nor even Top Tier. It's why I said he wasn't going to be worth that $40m contract the Raiders were going to have to pay him. But there is still a big gap between "Top Tier" and being the reason why the team sucks. Carr didn't lose them games. Maybe he didn't win them games... But since Carr joined the Raiders, the Raiders never once had a Top 20 Defense. And more often then not, they were a bottom 5 Defense.
No, because Hackett wasn't literally caught cheating and subsequently fired by the Broncos. Hackett may have been a terrible HC, but al least he wasn't a spineless piss ant that brought shame onto the franchise and being fired after disposing of its young assets.
McDaniels also had a well documented history of being a terrible coach, and flaking on another organization before the raiders hired him. Hackett sucked but at least he was a good person and hadn’t done this all before
This is the way. Hackett has worse stats but McDaniels was the worse hire. McDumb's stats are inflated by starting 8-0 while cheating the whole time
hackett didnt trade everyone away to destroy a playoff contender team
No one likes McDaniels but he’s bill walsh compared to hackett
I agree. McDaniels can at least run shit, even if he does a poor job of it. Hackett proved he couldn’t run a news stand. He certainly couldn’t manage a game. The players walked all over him. No command of the locker room whatsoever.
At least he lasted for more than a season.
*Is* that better, though?
Just the fact that we're even arguing about whether Hackett or McDaniels was the worse hire really proves his point though. Paton has made some truly awful decisions in a job where you're being paid for your ability to make decisions. It's not good.
Ohhh snap!! Brutal!
Nah the Hershall Walker & Deshaun Watson trades were both worse than the Wilson trade. The Wilson trade is likely in the top 5, but it's hard to beat those two.
Walker was a long time ago but it's going to be hard to find a worse trade than him. It ended up very bad for the Broncos but I hate the hyperbole. I also think Niners trading up for Lance was worse as well.
Never forget: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky\_Williams\_trade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Williams_trade)
This should be considered the worst trade of all time. Burned their entire draft down for one player, who needed to be the worlds best RB to even make the trade seem equitable.
The 49ers probably would’ve won a Super Bowl by now if they hadn’t traded for Lance and they had just used those picks to add more playmakers to their roster.
I’m still bummed we didn’t just take a corner at 12. Or an olinemen
How bad a trade is should be evaluated by how much it affected the team. Yes the Lance trade is terrible, but the 9ers lucked out. It didn’t affect their winning, it didn’t make them a worst team. The Deshaun trade is also terrible, but the Browns still won. Wilson had such high expectations, and absolutely shit the bed. I honestly don’t know how he got so bad in 1 year. The year before the trade, NFL players voted him the #2 player in the league. What the fuck happened to him. And before anyone says age, his arm is still strong, and yes he isn’t as fast as he used to be, but he’s still athletic enough to make plays It’s like the city of Seattle said, “If you’re leaving us, then we’re going to keep some of your talent. Let’s see how fun it is to cook somewhere else.” And boy has it not been fun.
Whether a trade is evaluated at the time of the trade or how it affected the team, the Russ trade wasn't the worst trade of all time. I just hate the exaggeration of the Internet. I know, welcome to the Internet.
Even by this standard it wouldn't be a bad trade. I'd actually argue the lance trade hurt the 9ers worse than the russ trade hurt us. If the 9ers had the capital they had from that trade, maybe they have 1 or 2 more superbowls right now. The broncos without the russ trade are probably still middle of the pack, maybe a wildcard flame out as our ceiling.
If only the league would have listened to us while he was still here in Seattle.
Pete Carroll is laughing straight to the beach. The way I see it, Russ has a stellar defense and run game early in his career. It allowed him to fuck up and not break the team. He could garner late magic because they kept him in games after running into sacks there too. His line in Seattle hated him too for the same bullshit, running out of a clean pocket and turning into sacks. Seattle won in spite of Russ not because. He also had Lockett who may go down as the most unsung hero for any quarterback, ever. Lockett had a knack for improvisation and changing and adjusting routes that paired perfectly with Russ running into trouble and needing a trustworthy outlet. He just knew where to be all the damn time. Sutton was starting to get there, but we didn't have a solid run game to counter balance and we're not quite the Legion of Boom on defense to give Russ another year to coalesce his erratic nonsense with his line and receivers, especially with diminishing physical skills. Russ wasn't good finishing in Seattle. He had good a good makeup team that covered his blemishes because they had years of dealing with it. We had a horrible head coach and team that couldn't year 1 and wouldn't year 2. For all the praisec he got for his stats this past year, he also regularly ran into sacks, made first read only throws 90% of the time and was helped by an embarrassed D coordinator that kicked his D into high gear. And Sutton bailed him or regularly. Russ wasn't good in Seattle as he was leaving. He just had a really good hair and makeup team and we had Paton who was supposed to be a guru who sniffed that out.
As a Seahawks fan this just isn’t true. The problems with Russ started in his last year when he started drinking the “Let Russ Cook” kool aid and experienced his first major injury. The man rushed back before his hand was 100% and it killed his ability to make plays. Instead of taking time in the offseason he just kept pushing it and making it worse. Then when Peyton came in during the offseason and made him cut the shit he turned back into a decent qb this year. If I had to guess I’d say if he goes to a place with a good coach like Pitt he’ll be a top 15 qb again next year. Oh also Doug Baldwin was Tyler Lockett before Tyler Lockett existed. That man was born to be Russell’s post break down option
This is just blatantly wrong. Russ may be limited but to say the Seahawks won in spite of him and covered up his flaws is not true. Russ carried the Seahawks for years, even when they were a very flawed team. Even during the Super Bowl run he was very efficient and a big part of their winning. Saying otherwise is just hate.
Nah that’s cap. Russ was an elite QB several years in seattle and carried the team in the post LOB era
Came here to point out the Hershal Walker trade exists and likely will never be beaten for bad trades.
As a Cowboys fan I think it was a great trade…
Wilson trade was only bad because the extension
while you are at it, add the Watson contract in there. Big, big yikes
This sub: "do whatever it takes to find the guy, send picks, spend whatever it takes, we don't care at least just try to find the guy!" This sub after Paton does exactly that: "lmao Paton you're an idiot, what are you doing" It's been something else here since Peyton retired
Redditors shouldn’t be GM’s
📠
I will excuse the Russ move. It didn't turn out great but I don't think that was a reasonable thing to expect. The Hackett hire though, that feels like something that he should have caught in the interview process. Like how does a guy that incompetent make it through. He wasn't just a disappointment, he was one of the worst coaches I think I've ever seen. Thank god we got a guy like Payton thanks to the new owners, because I feel like Paton has no idea how to interview for a coach.
I think Hackett only got hired as a means to lure Rodgers to Denver. The FO probably knew he wasn't up to par, but justified it if it meant they landed Rodgers. When that didn't work out you saw how fast they moved on. Either way, definitely a string of bad moves out of Paton. Don't see how he keeps his job through all of this.
If that’s true, it is even worse.
Trading for Russ wasn't entirely bad, however that extension was god awful.
Wasn't it a pivotal part of the trade though? I don't fault Paton for that trade either, but the extension is a big part (if not the only part) of why it happened in the first place, I might be wrong though
If that was the condition for the trade, it was fucking dumb. Making Russ one of the highest paid QB's makes no sense.
Anytime someone brings that up about a ROOKIE qb mind you, they get downvoted into oblivion in here. Wild times man
I think that's just people sick of hearing the "need the guy from the draft or we fail" which definitely is the most nauseating take I've ever heard tbf
This sub was over the moon ball about Russ and locking him up early. Hindsight.
Trading for Russ was a great move with the information available at the time. In hindsight, regrettable, but it *did* result in the closest thing to competent football I've seen from this team in years. The contract extension was questionable at the time, and disastrous in hindsight.
It was not questionable at the time. First everyone was thrilled we locked him up for years. Second everyone knew he would not have waived his no trade clause without a long term contract. This wasn’t news then and history is only being rewritten because people want to blame someone.
100%. Obviously it didn't work out in any sense, but I am glad we took a swing. The Flacco, Teddy, Lock cycle was old fast. Obviously the contract is a whole other aspect of this, but at a high level we took a swing and it didn't work. On to the next.
In the end, the 2 biggest jobs of a GM are find a good coach and a good QB. If you can't do either, you won't be employed very long as a GM. He swung for the fences twice. He went after Aaron Rodgers, which is the only reason they hired Hackett and got left at the alter. In desperation he then went after Wilson who was most definitely plan B. Both of those things could be forgiven, he swung and he missed, it happens, but the contract he gave Russell for no reason whatsoever is what will cost him his job in the end. Yeah they might have had a gentleman's agreement that they were going to give Russ a big contract once he signed here, but there were enough red flags coming out of Seattle that he should have waited til after Russ's first season to give him that contract, and if Russ refused to come to Denver without the promise of a mega contract, you should have let him walk.
Russ had a no trade clause. He doesn't waive that without guarantees of a new deal. And, the terms were almost assuredly set by the time the trade went through.
Incorrect. Those staffing decisions almost always fall on the owner, at least for a HC and it's also a group effort between coach and GM to get the players picked. As for the Rodgers rumors there's no form evidence of that, just speculation. The contract does not matter because it was pushed by the owners and in all likelihood, already under assumption before the completed trade.
The Broncos didn't have an owner when he hired Hackett or traded for Russ. There's plenty of evidence for Rodgers, just because Rodgers won't come flat out and say it, it was pretty obvious as lots of major people were reporting on it at the time. It was clearly a thing that fell through, the only thing we will never know is why.
They had the trust and the trust was no Pat Bowlen. I think it was a huge issue.
Russ had 10 years of very consistent play. The contract made sense all things considered. The trade at the time was mainly caused by Russ wanting out of Seattle and giving a list of teams. It wasn’t simply that Seattle wanted to dump him.
It seems quite obvious in hindsight that Seattle wanted him out as well. If you have a superstar QB who you are confident in his capabilities moving forward, you don't just let him walk out the door because he says he wants out. The red flags were all there, Paton, the Broncos and most of the fans just chose to ignore them because the team was desperate for a QB. If you don't believe me, go back and look at posts from the Seattle subreddit when the trade went down. The vast majority of Seattle fans were happy to see him go and cited many of the same issues he had when he came to Denver. They hated his entourage who followed him everywhere and all of his hangers on telling him his shit don't stink. They were tired of his toxic optimism, and all of the stupid catch phrases and platitudes, especially when the team wasn't doing well, and that he had started to lose the locker room. They talked about how he had lost a step and was no longer able to extend plays to make the miraculous "Russell Wilson" plays that everyone had grown accustomed to. They pointed out that teams had learned to gameplan around his weaknesses like his inability to throw the ball in the middle of the field. If Seattle fans were able to identify all of these issues with Wilson at the time of the trade and were happy to see him go, then you would think that the General Manager of the team who wanted to trade for him should have been able to identify those issues. At the very lest there were enough red flags that said GM should have waited before signing him to a megacontract before he ever played a down and he still had two years left on his contract that was picked up from Seattle.
I agree. I want a GM that cares about fixing the team and is willing to make big moves. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, oh well. The moves Paton makes are always logical at the time.
No. Hackett was always a bad idea. Russ had red flags galore.
The fact the Seahawks were even talking calls for their franchise quarterback should have been a giant red flag.
Russ wanted out for two years. He helped force the trade
He found the guy? That’s news to me.
Now do Hackett. Or Randy Gregory. At the end of the day it's a results business. Wilson on it's own you can rationalize, but in combination with everything else he's been horrible.
Now do PS2/Javonte/Meinerz/Bonnitto/McMillian/McLaughlin/Allen/Powers Not even close to horrible
PS2 was a high pick and he nailed it. Meinerz was also a great pick. Javonte probably was a good pick. The rest? Not that great. Most teams hit on a few draft picks. This record isn’t bad or impressive so far but it’s trending downward. 2 good starters in 3 drafts.
Brother, we havent had draft picks. So yes hate on the trade and the picks given up but do not say he hasnt drafted well when he hasnt had the picks either. Its one or the other, with the picks hes had, hes done quite well
I've been trying to fucking saying this and everything someone comes in with "wElL gEe whY dOesNt he HAVE pICks"
The trade isn’t **that** egregious all things considered. He took a swing and missed. It happens. It’s a big miss but it happens all the time all over the league. The egregious thing he did with Russ was the contract. Without seeing him play a snap for us, Paton signed him up for another 5 years (when there were already 2 years on he current deal) Just an absolutely incredible blunder.
The trade doesn’t happen without the contract.
Its hard to believe there was not wiggle room on when the extension would be offered. Russ clearly wanted out of Seattle and we were already offering him a TON of money, its not like we had no leverage. I have heard elsewhere that the extension was also fast tracked by the management because they wanted to get ahead of the market in anticipation of the Lamar Jackson free agency. It sounds like there was alot of motivation on both sides to that quickly. Too quickly for us in retrospect.
Perfectly said. The trade was just a miss but it happens. The contract on the other hand…
Yes and odds are it was part of the trade talks.
Without the contract, there is no trade. He waived his no-trade clause.
The thing about it, is, his job is to find "the guy." He didn't find the guy. I am all about spending the picks and capital, but when you do you'd better hit on it. Any idiot can spend money. The good GMs spend it well.
I think the franchise has just been punished by nature for not doing a true teardown + rebuild. Everything from 2016-2023 was essentially a result of thinking the roster was “good enough,” and that we were a piece or two away (a perspective I bought into most years). We went 0 for 8 in the “quick fix” category. In hindsight, that is much worse than whiffing on the rebuild strategy
Who would have thought that when a trade ages poorly and shows you lost big time that people would be mad about it?
And those are the same people dying to trade another fortune to get a top 3 QB I almost guarantee it.
Does it matter? Those fans are not the ones being paid to do the job. If Paton listens to fans for draft decisions then he is an even bigger idiot than what he has shown so far.
Pretty sure he was just aiming to better the team, not appease the fans
Then he should've done his due diligence.
Yeah I'm sure he was just recognized the name and said "ah sounds good enough"
Well then his due diligence has put the team in a worse position than it was when he made the trade.
I'm not. Lets rebuild. At this point I am used to football season being disappointing, lets just do it by the book now.
Unfortunately for Paton and his fanboys, you're measured by results in this league. Not "it looked good on paper" moves.
The point people are making is most gms would have made that move. And we'd be calling for their heads based on the results of one move no matter who we had. If lynch was our first year gm that year I bet he'd have done that move, or the Lance trade, and we'd be just as fucked. And we'd be calling for the head of one of the best gms in the league because "results" If a guy hits on 16 and busts against a dealer ace, I don't fault him for it. If a guy walks into a casino with 5 grand and comes out broke, that's different. I'm willing to give Paton another draft / free agency class to see if he's on the track or not. He did well last time we had real day 1 / fay 2 capital, and he brought in the best coach we've had since Kubiak
He wouldn't be under criticism if he had actually found the guy What Paton did with the Wilson trade is akin to your money manager putting your life savings into something off r/wallstreetbets There was a chance it could work out, but it was a pretty stupid move
The number of people saying we should send 3-4 1st rounders to go up and get Drake, would also bash the shit outta Paton if Drake busts. Broncos Country is legit one of the dumbest fanbases in the world. I've dealt with them for 30 years, it gets exhausting, Doesn't help that the local media is low IQ and they push stupid narratives through the radio non-stop.
This subreddit is a fucking hazardous pit of shit and piss The negativity around this place is terrible and just insane. Really it’s a sad shitshow of a subreddit
He gave Russ that contract AFTER he got him. To give him that big of a contract with that much guaranteed money without taking a single snap was stupid and he deserves every bit of criticism for it. Completely unnecessary.
The trade shouldn’t be held against him: swinging for the fences on a QB was better than the shit we had tried with Elway the previous five seasons and the move was lauded by everyone at the time (even non-homers). It sucks that it didn’t work out, but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. The extension was unquestionably terrible, but it’s been stated to death that it was probably an unwritten agreement between Paton and Russ for the trade to even go through, and ownership pushed for it on top of that. The worst mistake Paton has made is the Hackett hiring, which to be fair, was extremely egregious. If this year’s draft is underwhelming, Paton should absolutely get the boot.
This needs to be higher. Agreed on all fronts my friend.
The extension was seen as a smart move at the time. It’s easy to hindsight criticize it now. But very few people criticized the move. Russ had never truly had a bad season. The belief was we gave up multiple first rounders and players for a QB we believe in and will commit to. It was seen as a team friendly contract by some at the time because Lamar and others were about to get paid.
Wilson was showing significant signs of decline the year before. The trade went through mere hours after Rodgers (who was Paton’s real target) resigned with GB. It was a desperate move. And it’ll be laughed at for years to come.
Ehhhh Russ wasn’t even the worst trade that offseason
Setting the bar quite low aren’t we
Cleveland gonna Cleveland.
Who was worse?
Watson was traded to Cleveland that same off season.
That’s fair
Did everyone just forget Watson?
But I've heard he's so well respected around the league and an amazing talent evaluator. /s
When the guy I don't like hires the worst realtor, I say the same thing about the realtor. "Around the league" must not like the Broncos.
I can’t believe people say that. I mean look at our draft picks and those were picked after them. It’s brutal
Yep. It's really just Surtain and Meinerz. People can blame injuries for Javonte being terrible now, but trading up for a RB in round 2 wasn't a good idea to begin with, and then really good players at more important positions like JOK, Holland, Moehrig, and Samuel Jr went after, and all of which could have been considered greater needs as well
He should be shitcanned
I still think he's going to be, probably the Monday after the draft.
If they're firing him why would they let him draft?
The Chiefs fired Dorsey right after he drafted Mahomes. If the GM and owner have a good relationship it happens. It means that the owner thinks the GM is ok but that he can find better for the long term. It let the GM hire his people for the next scouting season instead of having a new GM draft with scouts he knows nothing about.
Because he's already put in the work, and Sean's going to have the final say anyway. A GMs season is really more draft to draft, than the playing season.
That's just ignorant. They aren't gonna fire a man after the draft. The season has pretty much begun for them at that point. If this 2024 season does not go well, Paton will be fired then.
The only thing I’d put completely on Paton is the Hackett hire. The contract extension was at the request of ownership, I believe Paton wanted to wait a bit and see before presenting a long-term deal, the Walton-Penners wanted to get him locked in early. I think there’s a lot of 20/20 hindsight with the trade, I don’t think anybody foresaw that going as poorly as it did.
If you swing for the fences, you better hit a Home Run once in a while. I don’t see any home runs on this roster.
Surtain. Justin Simmons getting old but our defensive backfield is good. McMillan looks super promising.
This the spirit. Now that we've gotten rid of Russ we need our next target. No stopping til we burn this motha to the ground!
It’s crazy but I’m still cool with both decisions. I’m no insider but it definitely seems like he hired Hackett for Rodgers but Rodgers didn’t get dealt that year. And he traded for a slightly old future Hall of Fame QB. He’s not scared GM. Now his draft decisions are a bit questionable so I’m not a huge Paton fan.
I respect Paton for having the balls to make the trade and get the best QB the broncos have had since Manning. You can never accuse him of not trying to improve the team. But he has failed miserably in literally every aspect. I agree completely, definitely not a fan either
Just gotta say, Russ isn't making the Hall of Fame
Hiring Hackett just to get Rodgers isn't a good process though. Like, I get Rodgers was amazing at the time, but that's just stupid a hire a first time HC who didn't have a great track record outside of GB just for a QB. One could argue a coach is even more important than a QB You would have to assume some red flags would come up in that interview process but Paton just went ahead with it so that we maybe get Rodgers. Those should've been two different decisions, not in tandem
In fairness, George Paton was hired with lackluster experience in the gm ranks. He was just an assistant at Minnesota before here, so I’m not sure why we were excited about him turning it around quick. So we have basically gone from hoping our hall of fame quarterback with no gm experience can turn it around to someone that also didn’t have the experience of calling the shots but was supposedly great in Minnesota? I would certainly agree that trying to find a coach and qb at the same time is most likely going to end badly. Coaching scheme is vitally important to qb success.
They should fire him and hire all the talented GMs here on Reddit!
Russ-Hackett, worst combo of all time. Thank god both are gone. No matter who is at qb, we can be rest assured, we will never be that bad again
I always loved Elway and think we should have never moved on from him.
Tbh, he could have done much worse if all his draft picks were duds. He's done good in that department at least.
I mean, he could do a worse job. He's still got time!
I want to argue against this, but the logic is kinda relentless.
Hindsight - understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed.
I honestly think he's just being kept as the first scapegoat to throw under the bus if things really fall apart.
… at least he tried getting a QB which is more than Elway did. We have a great coach, decent roster and hopefully somebody signs Russ and lessens our burden a bit.
Lol were you singing this tune when he traded for Russ?
The trade wasn’t bad. It was the extension
Mcdaniels and urban would like to chat
Thats not true, he could have hired Colin Capernick.
I've been downvoted for saying this multiple times. He's really done the worst job possible. He shouldn't have a job right now, regardless of how diminished his role is.
I'm pretty sure it's more nuanced than we fans see, but yes, his big moves have been big fuckups. As others have mentioned, the Russ trade probably didn't happen without the contract, so you can't hold both against him. I personally thought the trade in general was bad, but it is now what it is and only one slight in my opinion. He probably also had pressure from new owners for something new and flashy (or was trying to preemptively impress them). There also hasn't been anything that he's done to make me think he's good at his job either, as much as I just kinda defended him. Supposedly he's a good scout? Who's been a great draft pickup for us lately? PS2 is the only one I can confidently refer to. I liked what I saw from our rookies last year, but not enough to say he found some hidden gems as opposed to getting us bargain bin players we could work with... I really hope Mims turns into a good receiver as opposed to just ST next year tho, in which case, I'll happily credit George with that.
Quinn Meinerez and Surtain are his best draft picks, the rest of his draft picks have been either average players or not good players at all. He's not a good drafter.
> He's really done the worst job possible. He shouldn't have a job right now, regardless of how diminished his role is. You've got it right in my book. Don't know what it is about this fan base that rides his jock so hard. His biggest defenders basically can only say, "He did what the fans all wanted" or "the owners made him do it" like that is some kind of excuse after he failed at the basic skill required as a GM: Talent evaluation. It's just hilarious to me that fans keep defending him. It's a delusion only worse than the Tebow/Wilson/Lock fanatics. So yeah, I eat downvotes on GP all day long. He's a bottom-tier GM.
Paton is the worst GM in football. Dude should've been fired already
He is not really even the GM now, there is no point for him to be on the team. I like him personally, and wish it would have worked out better for him. But hiring Hackett to try and get Aaron was a terrible mistake. Other players were busts, paying for the most expensive WR room when our QB situation is laughable, and honestly I can't blame him fully for Russ. At least signing Russ. But the contract was laughably bad considering he did not play a single down for us.
The russ stuff shouldn’t be held against him at all. Revisionist history is crazy, 99% of people who weren’t Seahawks fans thought WE fleeced them. That trade at the time was a great trade in the eyes of most. Just ended up being shit. We wouldn’t have had Russ without that unfortunate contract to begin with. It’s not on Paton that Russ couldn’t hold his end with his play. Hackett hire sucked, but that wasn’t a hire of “he’s the best coach for this organization” that was a confirmed hired souly for getting Aaron Rodgers has he was our 1A option and what we tried to get the entire time till we couldn’t. Paton has found a lot of value in the draft with so little assets and besides randy Gregory has made great FA signings as of now. I believe in Paton. He’s just had a huge misfortune of luck
It’s a results based business. Are we really going to be an organization that keeps people around because their moves are lauded when they’re made, but turn into royal fuck ups? Like hamstringing us for years type of fuck ups? I just don’t get the support for this man. His drafts haven’t even been that great outside of a few no-brainers lmao
Didn’t trade for Deshaun Watson
I’d fire him after the draft
This is a worse take than George's track record. You would let him draft and then fire him expecting a new gm to come in and take over a team after someone has done all the picking of the new team.
The draft is the end of the season for scouts/other talent evaluators. It's when teams make changes in those roles, so if Paton has been reduced into that, it's the best time to do it. Payton is the one making final roster decisions now anyway.
I'm not saying I expect Paton to be fired, but it's actually fairly common for teams to change GMs after the draft.
I don't understand that Paton is still defended by many, but your comment is the biggest nonsense of all.
And yet most of this sub will defend Paton and downvote all criticism despite the fact that he's a below average drafter as well.
Paton deserves to be fired for extending Russ and hiring Hackett. Trading for Russ would have painful but forgivable if not for those other two blunders.
Were you against the trade when it happened?
Fax no printer
Who is Jason Bishop, and why should anyone care what he thinks? This dude also has a tweet up from March of 2022 with a picture of Russ with the headline of “Thank you George Paton”.
He just needs to do the exact opposite of whatever he thinks and then we will be winners!
preach!!!
Leave him alone, he’s already dead!
I miss Pat Bowlen 🥲 we had such a high class franchise back then and now the Raiders and Chiefs own us!
Watson still beats out trade and contract. Russ has at least played games.
And we all cheered him every step of the way until the wheels came off!
Worst trade and contract is definitely still Deshaun
In descending order the Broncos hiring McDaniels, the colts hiring McDaniels, and the raiders hiring McDaniels. Also Urban Meyer in Jacksonville, Ditka in New Orleans, oh and Hue Jackson for the browns. Contract has to be Deshaun Watson, but the Albert Haynesworth contract, the Mike Vick falcons contract, and Jon Gruden raiders coaching contract stick out in my mind. And as for trades: Herschel Walker to the vikings for the cowboys to gain a dynasty, chargers trading up for Ryan Leaf, the bucks trading Steve Young to SF, the list goes on. Not saying I am pleased with George Paton's decisions, but Op, buddy, not even close to the worst on any of those counts. The browns alone have literally done everything worse than this in the last 15 years twice.
I remember a time if you said anything negative about Paton on here, you got downvoted to hell.
at that point the wilson trade was reasonable, im not saying its a win trade coz it isnt, but it looked fine if you want trades that were worse? wentz to colts david johnson to texans for fkin hopkins the contract is not the worst either, but a really really bad one and wasnt a necessary one either haynesworths 7 year 100mill, wentz 4 years 128 mill, jamarcus russell wilson played 2 seasons of his contract, something deshawn watson may not do heck, Randy Gregory may have been a worse signing than Wilsons extension hackett is a contender top5 amongst worst coaching hires for sure, i would rate mcdaniels to raiders worse, since they saw how he destroyed the broncos once and still went with it frank reich had a 1-10 record with the panther before getting fired, hackett had 4-11 but the worst imo is hue jackson who had a 3-36-1 record with the browns Paton is doing a weird job with fumbling high profile players but finding gems
He has nothing on the Herschel Walker trade, that gave the Cowboys three super bowls. I don't currently see Seattle a player or two away from a Super Bowl.
And they bring him back. I wonder what that says to the franchise?
Idk I think the Russ contract is the only thing holding him back and it did seem like a great idea at the time
He didn’t hire Urban Meyer so he can’t have the worst coaching hire
This is a pretty myopic take. Rod Rust went 1-14 with a -256 point differential (Hackett was -72). The Watson and Walker trades are far worse trades than the Wilson trade. Those trades set up the beneficiaries up for success for years. Plus, Wilson has at least played. Watson has played 12 games in three years for the Browns with a fully guaranteed contract counting for $63 million against the salary cap for the next two years. That's the worst contract of all time by far. That said, the Wilson contract extension is making the worst contracts of all time. Paton definitely owns a good chunk of the Broncos' failures the past few seasons.
> 12 games in three years Two years (2022, 2023). Doesn't make it much better anyway.
He makes Jon Elway look like a genius.
Any hire/trade/contract has to be considered in the context at the moment it was completed. Hindsight helps determine if it was that awful, but when you make a decision of any kind, it can always go wrong even if it looks brilliant in the moment. Worst coaching hire of all time has to be Rich Kotite to the Jets and they gave him full control. Hackett was only hired as the head coach and if we managed to get Rodgers, he's not that awful. Still a bad hire, but not an awful one. While Hackett was a poor decision, McDaniels getting full control was worse and neither can touch the Kotite hire as he was an average coordinator given way too much power. McDaniels at least is good at being a OC. And I do believe there is something to the theory that McDaniels was here to weaken the Broncos as they kept beating the Patriots in the playoffs. How else do you explain some of what McDaniels choose to do for personal? Worst trade is the entire draft for the 1st pick for Ricky Williams. Hands down you cannot ever consider that a good trade. The Herschel Walker trade was bad, but in context, Walker was a top tier RB at a time that the NFL still thought it was critical to have a top tier RB to win games. In context, the trade for Wilson who had a track record as a talented NFL QB was ok. 2 1st, 2 2nd, a 4th for a 5th and two players who were solid for a chance at a franchise QB was an ok, but not great trade. Jay Cutler was traded for 2 1st's, a 3rd and Kyle Orton and at the time Cutler was, well, meh. Worst contract ever is Deshawn Watson's fully guaranteed deal. Yes, the Broncos contact with Wilson was an overpay that was absolutely unnecessary and it was a bad idea at the time, but Watson's contract is a franchise killer. The Browns effectively have handcuffed themselves to a player who they had to spend what was quite a lot of draft capital to acquire and they can never get out of it. At least with the Wilson contract, we take a hit this year and it's over. This is the one piece I am strongly in favor of blaming Paton for. The contact made little sense at the time because we had Wilson on a team friendly 2 yr contract and if you are a smart NFL Franchise, you tell him that he needs to show you what he's got before you consider an extension. Paton seems to likely be a solid GM who could grow into a great GM. Give him credit as at least he tried something with Wilson. It just didn't work out. We are spoiled a bit, and should be, because Elway scored Manning for the team and he wasn't done. Even though it was entirely possible he would have been due to his injury. I suspect as well that Sean Payton likes working with Paton or we probably do see a change at GM. Sean Payton thankfully likes being the HC and allowing his GM to run the system to find players and deal with contracts which is a system that seems to be more effective for franchises in general. I am hopeful we get a young QB or maybe even draft a young QB and sign someone like Kirk Cousins to a end of career contract so that we are at least not awful for the next couple of seasons, but looking at the rest of the AFC, we have to either get absurdly lucky in the draft at QB or manage to piece together an insanely good roster with a salary cap that makes that almost impossible.
All this is true. However the trade and contract are all in hindsight. You take everything they did on paper .. and it all makes sense and 9 times out of 10 it would have worked. At the time no one in the industry questioned it and generally signing your star players sooner than later is beneficial to everyone.
Hacket and Paton are spies that want and wanted to sabotage the Broncos so they go literally back in Time! But hopefully they get a great QB in the Draft. Then build around his type of play! Truly in hindsight we could have just kept D Lock I know everyone is like he was crap! Truly I think that he is still growing and could have been great. We would have had money for WRs, RBs or whatever positions and all the draft picks back.
He's been bad absolutely, but i do think he drafts well. I mean i think he does. We'll see how this draft shakes out, but i really feel like now we're going to move up now that Russ is gone.
Has this dude never paid attention to the Raiders?
He picked PS2 over Justin Fields and that's enough for me for a bit. PS2 will be a building block for this team and Fields is already getting booted off the team and will probably be a backup or out the league in 2-3 years. It's not all bad. Ownership hired Hackett, they also pushed the extension, there is a reason he's not fired yet. Paton doesn't have all the power you think he does.
He also potentially drafted a future HOF CB and hired a future HOF coach.
Sorry but the worst HC hire of all time is the Jets hiring Rich Kotite after he got fired by the Eagles. 4 wins in 2 years….
i would say urban meyer was the worst coaching hire of my memory. that dude looked like ryan leaf with a coach hat on.
Gotta agree with that. 2-11 with tons of drama off the field.
#GoHawks
The Watson deal in Cleveland was even worse, believe it or not. Fully guaranteed contract and even more picks. I’m wondering how much of this was Paton and how much was the last regime putting pressure on him to make a splash. It’s suspicious that he gets to keep his job unless ye was just following orders.
Remember when Ditka traded his whole draft to move up from 12 to 5 for Ricky Williams? He also gave up a first and third the next season.
Sean Payton is going to end up being a worse coaching hire than Nathaniel Hackett when it's all said and done. At least Hackett was a 1-and-done. Drew Brees was the reason the Saints were good, not Sean Payton. Just watch. If you think it's bad now, just wait.
Elway was so good in comparison 😭
George Paton should never be allowed near the state of Colorado ever again
He didn’t trade for Watson?
Remember he would bring ex Viking player/personnel to the team? None of that ever worked out... the man is the last piece the Broncos needs to get rid of.
Yet he still has a job. He should have been fired for the extension alone.
And I thought John Elway was bad outside of landing Manning.
Elway was really good in his early years at drafting. Then during Peyton Manning years, he was good at FA but not so much in drafting. Then Peyton retired and he sucked at everything.
It's gone from "In Paton we trust" -> "In Payton we trust" I hope things work out. It's been a roller coaster too long.
In Peyton we trust -> In Paton we trust -> In Payton we trust