When George Paton was hired by the Denver Broncos in the wake of John Elway’s promotion, he chose to keep the director of player personnel title — previously held by Matt Russell, who fired following Elway’s departure from the GM job — open until after the draft. Now with the draft completed, that role has finally been filled by Darren Mougey, as Paton continues to fill out his front office.
Mougey will join a team in the front office that already features the young, and heavily-praised Kelly Kleine and Roman Phifer.
So far, youth has been a theme with Paton’s front office hires. Mougey is only 36 and Kleine is just 30. That makes them two of the youngest ranking people at their respective positions in the entire league.
Mougey started with the Broncos in 2012, after being recommended to the team by Dave Ziegler — who now works as Bill Belichick’s right-hand man in New England. From there, Mougey started climbing his way up the ladder.
Last season, Mougey was the team’s assistant director of college scouting, so the leap all the way up to director of player personnel is a big one.
Now An NFL front office usually has a college scouting and a pro scouting department, which are both overseen by the director of player personnel. So, that means he’s going from being an assistant director of one of those branches to being the head director of both branches.
“Darren [Mougey] is an outstanding evaluator who has an excellent reputation around the league as an up-and-coming personnel executive,” Paton said through a statement released by the team. “Getting to work with Darren over the last five months, he is a strong communicator and has great leadership qualities. We’re fortunate to have Darren leading our pro and college scouting while also being a sounding board on all roster decisions.”
It’ll be interesting to watch and see what team Paton and the talented front office he’s assembled can build.