Before he became the Denver Broncos’ new general manager, George Paton worked under Rick Spielman with three different teams, including a 14-year run with the Minnesota Vikings from 2007-2020.
After Paton was announced as the Broncos’ GM last week, Spielman — who serves as the Vikings’ GM — gave his understudy a glowing review.
“Denver’s getting an incredible talent evaluator — and you’re not an incredible talent evaluator, in my opinion, unless you’re sitting there willing to do the work and do all the extra work that it takes and willing to look under every stone to find talent, and George does that,” Spielman said during a Zoom press conference on Jan. 14.
Spielman repeatedly praised Paton’s work ethic.
“[One] example I would give is because of all the COVID protocol, because there was no workouts in the spring, we were looking for a player and I trusted him and his staff and our pro department to find a guy and bring him to me and then let’s sit and meet on him. Well, he came in and he had a YouTube video of a guy working out on a beach that we eventually signed because that was the only thing we had.
“Now, not that you would ever make personnel decisions on a guy working out on a beach doing back peddles or catching a ball or anything, but that’s how far he will go to try to make sure we’re getting the best talent that we can to get in here, and the player ended up coming here and actually played for us late in the season.”
Paton will rank below president of football operations John Elway, but he will have control over the roster. Paton will be in charge of making decisions on safety Justin Simmons, defensive lineman Shelby Harris, outside linebacker Von Miller and, of course, the quarterback situation.
Paton will have a busy offseason, and he’s ready to take on the task.
“I’m excited for him because now — although when we talked and put our plan together he always had a big influence and a big input on what we’ve done and how we did things — and now he’s got a chance to run the show there and I’m anxious to see what he puts in place and some of the ideas that he may have on how to move forward,” Spielman said.
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