Cutting Randy Gregory step in cleansing Broncos locker room losing culture

10/05/2023

The shock wasn’t that the Broncos cut linebacker Randy Gregory, paid $1.33 million for each of the 21 tackles he made in a Denver uniform.

The shame was coach Sean Payton didn’t tell Gregory to get lost before this NFL season began.

“We felt it was best for our team,” Payton said Wednesday, emphasizing the decision to part ways was made by Denver management, contradicting the crazy suggestion from Gregory’s camp that walking out on the Broncos was somehow the player’s idea.

Good riddance.

Desperate for a pass-rusher in the worst way possible after trading away Von Miller and Bradley Chubb, Broncos general manager George Paton threw stupid money at Gregory before the 2022 season.

But after appearing in only 10 games, he leaves Denver with $28 million in his pocket and the distinction of joining offensive tackle Ja’Wuan James, cornerback Dale Carter and defensive tackle Daryl Gardener as the worst free-agent acquisitions in team history.

The Broncos should’ve never allowed Gregory on the team plane to celebrate their comeback from a 21-point deficit to beat the bad news Bears in Chicago.

At the lowest point of that game, when Chicago running back Khalil Herbert scored on a two-yard touchdown pass to put the Bears ahead 28-7 late in the third quarter, Gregory sulked on a slow walk back to the Denver bench, pouting like a kid who had dropped his ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

The presence of Gregory on the Denver roster had festered for too long.

He was the face of a losing culture during the Christmas Day massacre in Los Angeles, a 51-14 loss to the Rams that got coach Nathaniel Hackett fired. Nobody melted down more dramatically than Gregory. After the game, as players shook hands on the field, he threw a punch at L.A. guard Oday Aboushi.

“Y’all want to know if I hit him in the mouth, I did,” groused Gregory while departing the visitors locker room on that bah-humbug of a December afternoon.

While Payton has talked tough, a coach truly committed to wiping away a losing mentality from Denver’s locker room would’ve broomed Gregory before the Broncos played a game in 2023.

Any team serious about rebuilding a winning culture would be foolish to depend on Gregory, who demonstrated more than once an inability to handle football adversity. The dejection on his face in the locker room last week during preparation for the Bears was unmistakable, and as it turned out, a signal he was destined to be replaced in the starting lineup against Chicago.

Payton, however, waited to cut Gregory until he was comfortable with Jonathon Cooper and Nik Bonitto, who teamed up for the scoop-and-score turnover that was the biggest moment of the Broncos’ rally against the Bears, as his primary edge rushers, with veteran Frank Clark soon expected to be back from injury.

“We just felt like these other guys were playing better,” Payton said. “It happens in this league. We want the best players possible.”

What Payton left unsaid: shortcomings in talent throughout the Broncos lineup can be fixed through the draft, trades or free agency, but deficiencies in football character cannot be tolerated.

The Broncos ran out of patience with Gregory. And Paton, the personnel executive who grossly overpaid for an edge rusher who had never produced more than six sacks during a season since entering the league in 2016, should be on the clock.

While I am happy to give Paton his due for drafting cornerback Pat Surtain II and giving running back Jaleel McLaughlin a shot as a rookie free agent, he consistently has blown the big decisions.

Although the performance of quarterback Russell Wilson has been the least of Denver’s problems during a 1-3 start, the ill-advised $245 million contract extension that doesn’t kick in until 2024 makes every move in the team’s process more difficult.

Placing trust in Gregory, who is nearly 31 years old and still hasn’t grown up, was an act of desperation.

And the worst decision of all by Paton?

We’ll be reminded Sunday, when Hackett comes to Denver as the offensive coordinator for the New York Jets.

Payton the coach would be a fool to be undermined by Paton the general manager.

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Cutting Randy Gregory step in cleansing Broncos locker room losing culture

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