4. Hiring Nathaniel Hackett and trading for Russell Wilson
In the same offseason, George Paton pulled off two of the biggest mistakes in franchise history. Now, I'll preface this by saying that I am still on board with Russell Wilson. He's on pace to have a very strong year passing. He's on pace to throw for over 4,000 yards and 34 TDs. He and the offense are fine, but right now, the trade is still one-sided, favoring the Seattle Seahawks.
The Nathaniel Hackett hiring was just a total whiff by Paton. This alone might be a fireable offense. Not only did he make a mistake in hiring Nathaniel Hackett, but Paton also totally whiffed on potentiall hiring both Mike McDaniel and Doug Pederson.
McDaniel just hosed the Denver Broncos and looks to be an elite head coach already, and Doug Pederson was able to take the Jaguars to a 9-8 record in his first season with them. Pederson also won a SB back in 2017 with the Eagles as their HC.
5. Other mistakes are not forgotten
Needing to trade more draft picks for Sean Payton was something the Denver Broncos should not have needed to do. Missing on Drew Lock in the 2019 NFL Draft was a mistake. The team not prioritizing the wide receivers and relying too much on their current personnel was a mistake.
George Paton has made a ton of mistakes with the pass rush. That unit, frankly, sucks now. The team made a mistake by not doing more with the secondary this offseason. They made a huge mistake in drafting KJ Hamler back in 2020. Re-signing Kareem Jackson was a huge whiff. Melvin Gordon's tenure was largely a joke.
Some of the smaller mistakes aren't nearly as big as what I mentioned earlier in this piece, but they still need talked about.