The Denver Broncos selected former Ole Miss QB Chad Kelly — the nephew of Buffalo Bills legend Jim Kelly — with the very last pick of the 2017 NFL Draft.
Coming off an impressive campaign at Ole Miss, Kelly was once a preseason star for the Broncos and had fans of the team clamoring for him to get an opportunity to actually start some games when he was on the roster from 2017-18 because of how much the team had been struggling at the position to find consistency and continuity.
Chad Kelly Denver Broncos
There was a point in the 2018 season in which it really felt like the Denver Broncos might insert Kelly into the lineup over starter Case Keenum, but nothing ever came to fruition as Kelly ended up getting in trouble after Von Miller’s annual Halloween party in an incident that will forever go down in one of the most bizarre events in NFL off-the-field history.
It was a bizarre situation to say the least, began at Von Miller’s Halloween party According to police documents, Chad Kelly, apparently dressed as a cowboy, stumbled into someone’s house, sat down on their couch, “mumbled incoherently” and then got hit with a vacuum tube as the homeowners believed he was an intruder, which technically he was.
It’s still unclear what he was charged with or if he was ultimately criminally charged at all, but the incident ended Kelly’s brief stint with the Denver Broncos. Unlike Brock Purdy, he truly became Mr. Irrelevant in a hurry.
He floated around the NFL for a couple years trying to land on practice squads and backup roles but nothing panned out. Eventually Kelly headed up North to join the CFL, and surprisingly he found major success.
In his first season as the starting QB for the Toronto Argonauts, Chad Kelly was named the Most Outstanding Player in the CFL for the 2023 season
The 29-year-old Kelly was central to the Argos’ 16-2 record, which tied the CFL record for most regular-season victories while establishing a franchise best in that category.
Kelly won 15 of 16 starts, and that 93.8 win percentage is the best in league history by a player with at least 14 starts. On the season, he completed 270 of 394 passes (68.5 per cent) for 4,123 yards with 23 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.
Former Denver Broncos QB Chad Kelly Being Sued By Ex-Staffer Who Claims She Was Fired For Resisting His Advances
Chad Kelly Denver Broncos
It seems like the pattern is repeating itself once again if the latest allegations surrounding Kelly are true.
Right when he finds a bit of success, he self sabotages and gets involved in bad situations.
As first reported by TSN, Kelly was named in a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit filed by a former female Argonauts strength-and-conditioning coach.
The suit was filed in Toronto on Tuesday accusing the former Denver Broncos QB of blatant harassment.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit alleges that Chad Kelly “repeatedly sought to initiate romantic connections… by asking [her] out on numerous occasions. Despite [her] polite refusals, Chad persisted in his advances, displaying a pattern of behaviour that raised concerns.”
The lawsuit also alleges that “a member of the Argonauts informed [the plaintiff] that on Nov. 5, 2023, while on the team bus, [Kelly] publicly accused [the plaintiff] of engaging in romantic relations with another team member.”
That led to a conversation between the plaintiff and Kelly a day later.
“Instead of addressing the concerns,” the lawsuit said, “Chad reacted with aggression, screaming, cursing, and waving his hands at [the plaintiff].”
According to the lawsuit, the former Argonauts coach who filed the suit claimed that Kelly subsequently yelled at the plaintiff from across the room, with Kelly saying that he couldn’t wait until the coach was fired.
“Despite [the plaintiff’s] supervisor witnessing parts of the incident and [the coach] reporting the ongoing harassment, the Argonauts failed to take any action to address the situation,” the lawsuit said.
The coach’s contract was not renewed by the Argos in January. Clearly the Denver Broncos nipped their problems with Chad Kelly right when he got in trouble the first time in the NFL, it will be interesting to see if his MVP status plays a role into his eventual future in the CFL.
