Broncos Roundtable: What’s George Paton’s best move of the offseason?

George Paton is off and running as the Denver Broncos’ new general manager.

In his first free agency in the Mile High City, Paton signed Shelby Harris and Justin Simmons to long-term deals, brought back Von Miller and Kareem Jackson, said goodbye to Phillip Lindsay, and signed two starting cornerbacks, including an All-Pro in Kyle Fuller, just to name a few of his moves.

All in all, Paton and the Broncos dropped over $150 million in contracts in the first few weeks of the NFL’s new league year.

The DNVR Broncos Crew breaks down what the best move of the offseason has been so far.

WHAT’S GEORGE PATON’S BEST MOVE OF THE OFFSEASON?

Zac

Signing Kyle Fuller — The best part about this questions is there are plenty of great answers. After going back and forth between signing Fuller, re-signing Shelby Harris and bringing Kareem Jackson back at less than half his original price, I landed on Fuller being the best of the bunch for a few reasons.

First and foremost, the Broncos landed an All-Pro cornerback. Simple as that. Nuff said.

But, of course, there’s more.

Paton got Fangio his cornerback. Not only a scheme fit, but someone Fangio trusts and has worked with in the past. This move was an investment in Denver’s head coach and de facto defensive coordinator.

Additionally, the one-year, $9.5 million contract Paton gave to Fuller is a steal. While on one hand, it would have been nice to lock in Fuller for a few years, the one-year deal actually gives the Broncos an incredible amount of flexibility. If Fuller isn’t able to regain his 2018 form under Fangio, in which he was an All-Pro, then it was smart for Denver to not give him All-Pro money for multiple years. However, if he does play well, the Broncos will have the ability to sign Fuller to a long-term deal during the season and not have to compete against other teams to re-sign him.

Signing Fuller was an extremely low-risk, exceptionally high-reward move. As a cherry on top, Denver made the move six days into free agency.

Mase

Re-signing Shelby Harris and Justin Simmons — Fuller’s impact could be profound on the state of the Broncos’ cornerback corps, after a year in which injuries and a lack of experienced depth left the Broncos scrambling from the outset. But Harris and Simmons coming back on multi-year deals that put $50 million of guaranteed money into their wallets is a bright bat-signal to the rest of the locker room that keeping quality players will be the top priority.

That message could have particular resonance for Broncos such as outside linebacker Bradley Chubb, wide receiver Courtland Sutton and tight end Noah Fant. Sutton is in his contract year as he emerges from a torn ACL, and if he has a 2021 campaign like his 2019 season, he could push toward the $20-million-per-year range. The fifth-year-option deadline for Chubb, a 2018 first-round pick, comes in early May. The decision on Fant will be made 12 months after that. Picking up those options will be a first step toward keeping them around long-term.

“I think it’s important for them to see that they’re going to be taken care of if they play to the level they’ve been playing at,” Simmons said. “Just make sure they keep doing the things they need to do, and they’ll be taken care of. That’s always important because a lot of the game is a lot more mental than I think a lot of people tend to believe. For those guys going out there week in, week out and knowing they’re putting their bodies on the line and knowing that whatever happens, I’ll give 100 percent. That work is showing in my productivity on the field and I’ll be taken care of.”

To John Elway’s credit, this was also a focus of his work during his final season on the job. The Broncos successfully negotiated extensions with first-teamers Mike Purcell, Brandon McManus and Garett Bolles, with Bolles’ deal giving him an average per-year salary of $17 million.

But Paton has now proved that he wants to reward the in-house talent. That has not always been the case, as longtime Broncos observers know.

In 2009, then-coach Josh McDaniels walked into Broncos headquarters and opened the league year by importing long snapper Lonie Paxton from New England when the Broncos had a perfectly effective incumbent snapper in Mike Leach. It might not have seemed like much on the surface, but the news was an earthquake that rattled an already nervous locker room: McDaniels wanted his own guys, regardless of the quality of the players on hand. Meanwhile, Leach went on to Arizona and played another seven seasons before retiring.

McDaniels sent those Broncos of a dozen years ago a message of fear and futility. You could do your job as well as possible, and he’d still yank the rug from under your feet. Paton did the opposite, and the players have already noticed. This is likely to resonate for years to come.

RK

Re-signing Justin Simmons — As Simmons awaited the right offer from Denver’s front office over the last year plus, the locker room was uneasy. Behind closed doors, several different members of the team were saying things like, “Justin better get paid.” When guys are brought into an organization, they’re told that if they do things a certain way, they’ll be taken care of, and Justin Simmons checked off all the boxes.

With Elway in charge, there almost seemed to be a fear in the locker room that for some reason, Simmons wasn’t going to be taken care of, and if that were to happen, the would have been some serious trust issues in that room. For George Paton to come in and get that contract taken care of relatively quickly, it was truly a great start for the relationship between himself and the players in Denver.

Paton getting Simmons paid almost felt like it lifted a weight off of the shoulders of everyone in the building, and for that reason, it’s the move of the offseason in Denver.