Broncos loss to Chiefs is huge indictment on George Paton
The Denver Broncos’ 34-28 loss versus the Kansas City Chiefs in week 14 was nothing more than a massive indictment on General Manager George Paton. The Broncos showed a ton of fight after being down 27-0 in the first half.
In fact, since that deficit in the game, they outscored Kansas City 28-7. I don’t think anyone could have predicted what happened on Sunday afternoon. Russell Wilson largely played well, and Jerry Jeudy had himself a career day.
However, a couple of instances during the game ended up not going in the Broncos‘ favor and proved to be a massive indictment of George Paton and his overall neglect of certain parts of the roster.
Firstly, Corliss Waitman. Waitman was not terrible today, but he had a couple of absolutely horrid punts that gave the Chiefs very good field position. Waitman has also largely been bad for most of the season. Cutting Sam Martin, who was a very good punter in favor of Waitman was a head-scratching move at the time and still remains one to this day.
Waitman punted seven times and did average 47.6 yards per boot, but he was not consistently doing it.
Next, is the backup quarterback position. Brett Rypien vs. Josh Johnson was not a serious backup QB competition, and I was continually wondering why Paton didn’t do more at this position. To make matters worse, the Broncos didn’t even put in a claim for Baker Mayfield, who just put together his best performance of the season at his new home on the Rams.
I’m not asking Paton to sign the best backup QB in NFL history, but something a bit more substantive than Johnson, who has often been signed during the season “off the street” as many say, and Rypien, who is nothing more than a body in the room would have been nice to see.
Who knows, maybe if George Paton would have invested something of note at the QB2 spot, the Broncos would have won. I’d hope this would be a lesson for Paton going into this offseason to not assume that certain positions don’t need more attention.