With all of the focus on the Denver Broncos and whether or not Sean Payton will continue to call plays for the offense in 2026, a pretty massive development has been getting overlooked.
General manager George Paton is entering his sixth year with the Denver Broncos in 2026, and the 2026 season will mark the final year on his contract with the team. It came up during the end-of-season press conferences that Paton (and Payton, for that matter) will need new deals soon, and Broncos CEO Greg Penner said that all of those discussions would be done in-house.
However, there is an interesting wrinkle to that situation with the Minnesota Vikings recently firing general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. The Vikings are on the hunt for a new general manager, and while they're currently planning on waiting until after the draft to hire someone, there are more and more reports surfacing that they might want to try and pry George Paton away from the Broncos, bringing him back to the team he spent such a significant chunk of his career with.
Vikings may seriously be trying to lure Broncos GM George Paton back to Minnesota
A recent article on ESPN had this to say about the situation with the Vikings and George Paton:
It's striking how many league sources think the Wilfs will pursue Denver Broncos general manager George Paton, who is under contract through the 2026 season, to change teams. Paton is a close friend and confidant of Spielman and worked as his top assistant not only with the Vikings from 2007 to 2020 but also with the Miami Dolphins for five years and the Chicago Bears for three.
- Kevin Seifert, ESPN
Now this is something.
If the Vikings truly wanted George Paton as their next general manager, they would actually have to trade for him. And trading for a general manager has never really been done before.
Paton has deep roots in Minneapolis, and his relationships with the ownership there would obviously make this a sensible long-term career move as opposed to staying in Denver. It's not that Paton wouldn't want to be in Denver, but he left Minnesota to be the top guy, and the arrival of Sean Payton has pulled from that.
Even though Paton and Payton have worked well together, it's fair to at least wonder whether or not Paton would want to sign an extension in Denver knowing that Payton has control over and final say over the roster.
Perhaps in returning to Minnesota, he would once again have that same type of influence over the roster that he once had in Denver. Keep in mind that this is a guy who passed up GM jobs for years before taking the job in Denver.
And as good as Denver's ownership group is, as good as the team has become, perhaps Paton truly loves Minnesota that much.
Or maybe all of this stuff is coming to light to give him some behind-the-scenes leverage in a contract. All it takes is one stroke of a pen on a new contract to say that all of this stuff was just talk. With the Vikings' opening coming right now, Paton has the opportunity to use their situation to his advantage.
But it does feel like this whole situation has some legs, and isn't just a tinfoil hat kind of theory.