On Oct. 14, 2018, at Empower Field, Broncos starting quarterback Case Keenum sat out a play against the Los Angeles Rams to be checked for a concussion. In came backup Chad Kelly, who got a huge ovation before taking his first NFL snap.

After all, the Broncos had high hopes then for Kelly, the nephew of Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Chad Kelly had been Mr. Irrelevant, the final pick in the 2017 NFL draft, before sitting out his entire rookie season due to wrist surgery. But Kelly, with his rocket arm, had looked good in the 2018 preseason and seized the backup job behind Keenum.

In that first NFL regular-season snap, Kelly took a knee for a 1-yard loss to run off the final 11 seconds of the first half and trotted to the locker room. Keenum was then cleared to play in the second half of Denver’s eventual 23-20 loss to the Rams.

That also to date is Kelly’s last NFL snap. Just nine days after his brief debut, Kelly was arrested on a charge of first-degree criminal trespassing after a bizarre incident in which he illegally entered an apparently random residence in Englewood and sat down on a couch next to a woman holding her child and was, according to the arrest affidavit, “mumbling incoherently.” He was chased out of the residence by a man who hit him with an aluminum vacuum tube and ended up being waived by the Broncos the next day.

Kelly eventually resurfaced with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, coming off the bench to lead them to a Grey Cup win in 2022 and being named the league’s Most Outstanding Player in 2023. Now, despite missing the entire 2025 season with a broken leg suffered in 2024, he still has hopes of one day returning to the NFL.

“That’s always the goal,’’ Kelly, 32, said in an interview with The Denver Gazette prior to the Argos starting training camp May 2. “It’s always a goal of quarterbacks, whatever league you’re in, is to get to the top of the top. … My talent speaks for itself.”

Nobody has questioned Kelly’s talent. He would have been a much higher draft pick out of Mississippi in 2017 if not for multiple off-the-field incidents. And even six years after his departure from the Broncos, he was suspended for the Argos’ two preseason games and the first nine games of the regular season in 2024 due to violating the CFL’s gender-based violence policy.

The suspension stemmed from a lawsuit filed by a former Argos strength and conditioning coach against Kelly and the team, with the woman claiming she was sexually harassed by the quarterback and then wrongfully fired. Although Kelly eventually decided not to fight the suit and accepted the suspension, he said the “real story will get out” eventually.

For now, Kelly insists he is a changed man since he was released by the Broncos. Making his year-round home in Toronto, the Buffalo, N.Y., native has been married for nearly two years to Theresa and they have 1-year-old son Chance and a daughter due in May. He has started the Chad Kelly Foundation to benefit kids with mental health issues and disabilities.

“You realize you do things at a younger age and you can be young and dumb, but then you become a father, a husband and you start a foundation and a lot changes,’’ Kelly said. “Things happen and you just try to grow. I wish I’d met my wife 15 years earlier because I think I’d be on a way different path.”

Those who know Kelly have seen a change in him in recent years.

“I think he’s a fantastic individual,’’ said Max Tremblay, who was Kelly’s manager for three years until the two parted amicably in January. “I’ve seen him grow tremendously over the past three years, becoming an exceptional father that is super hands on and is a loving husband who’s putting his family first and somebody who is always looking to do something for the greater good. Not necessarily profit motivated. His whole attitude changed since he became a father. He really started caring about others.”

Before joining the Broncos, Kelly had some well-publicized negative issues. In the spring of 2014, following his freshman season at Clemson, he was dismissed for “conduct detrimental to the team” after a shouting match with coaches. Later that year, he was arrested after an altercation at a nightclub in Buffalo before reaching a plea deal and doing community service.

However, Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, then Denver’s general manager, spoke to Jim Kelly before the 2017 draft and said he was told that Chad was “a good kid.” Kelly had thrown for 4,042 yards with 31 touchdowns in 2015 and for 2,758 yards with 19 touchdowns in an injury-riddled 2016.

Kelly sat out the 2017 season following his wrist surgery. Then in four 2018 preseason games, he completed 40 of 60 passes for 466 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions. The Broncos waived Paxton Lynch, their first-round pick in 2016, clearing the way for Kelly to be the backup to Keenum.

“I got to get close to ‘Swag’ Kelly and we built a relationship,’’ said running back Phillip Lindsay, an undrafted rookie in 2018 out of Colorado, using the nickname Kelly had brought with him to the Broncos. “He was a guy with a big personality and he was real confident in himself. …  I remember him saying at rookie minicamp, ‘Let’s get together and start throwing the ball around during the offseason.’ … In the preseason, he made a point of getting everybody involved. If it wasn’t for Chad Kelly throwing me the ball, I don’t make the team.”

Lindsay not only made the team, he excelled. He ran for a team-high 1,037 yards in 2018 and added 1,011 in 2019, making him the last Denver running back to have a 1,000-yard season.

Tight end Jake Butt, taken in the fifth round, was also a rookie in 2017 and, like Kelly, was on injured reserve his entire rookie season. He was Kelly’s roommate during training camp in 2018.

“Chad had a gravity about him,’’ Butt said. “He was loved in the locker room. … He stayed afterward in the building for extra work and he was a playmaker. A lot of people said, ‘Darn, in terms of talent, he’s going to be a starter in this league.’ … There was literally not a throw that Chad couldn’t make. He could rip it. He had some Brett Favre in his game.”

However, on the night of Oct. 22, 2018, Kelly attended a Halloween party coordinated by Broncos star outside linebacker Von Miller at The Gothic Theatre in Englewood. After the party early in the morning of Oct. 23 is when Kelly entered the Englewood home unlawfully.

According to the arrest affidavit, after Kelly sat down on the couch next to the woman, she called for a male homeowner, who hit the quarterback in the upper back with the aluminum vacuum tube and kicked him out of the home. Kelly, who was soon apprehended by police, told The Denver Gazette he had been drinking at the time.

“I wish I would have stayed home that night,’’ Kelly said. “There’s a lot of things you wish you did different. … You go out and you do stupid things. There a was guy by the name of Mike Sullivan (who was then the Broncos quarterbacks coach and now has that position with Las Vegas). He always said, ‘Anything that happens after 12 o’clock is never good.’ I would probably agree with him in saying that.

“You definitely regret it. You’re definitely young and dumb. … I knew mentally I wasn’t in a good place. I think there were a lot of things and emotions that I let get in the way of things and now I can learn to control myself. I’ve obviously worked on what I needed to get help with, and I did. And now I feel like I’m a new person. I’m a father, I’m a husband now. I just want to represent my last name and my family’s name in the right light and hopefully change things.”

After the incident, Kelly was released from the Broncos on Oct. 24. He eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor second-degree criminal trespassing.

“I sought help right after,’’ he said. “There was counseling. There was mental health stuff. … I self-reflected and knew what I can and can’t do and the same with drinking. I definitely would do a lot of drinking and that’s not good. You’re a quarterback. You got to represent the team and everybody in the right light.”

Kelly said now he only drinks “every once in a while but not anywhere (near) from where it was.”

After the incident and with Kelly being waived, teammates were stunned.

“Obviously, a line was crossed that night, not just for the team, but for the actual law,’’ said Butt, now a broadcaster for Fox and the Big Ten Network. “You can’t cross that line, and especially when you’re a quarterback you can’t flirt with that line.”

Butt wasn’t at the Halloween party due to rehabbing a torn ACL suffered earlier in the season. Lindsay was at the party and doesn’t recall Kelly doing anything there out of the ordinary. But he remembers what it was like in the locker room in the days after the incident.

“All of us (on the team) were looking at how fast things can switch on you in one night,’’ said Lindsay, now a sports talk-show host in Denver. “You’re out there enjoying your night and having fun with your teammates and then somebody does something they wish they could take back and it changes their career. If Chad Kelly could have stayed level-headed and stayed focused on what he needed to do, he would have (continued to be) the backup quarterback for the Denver Broncos. He had an arm, he was very accurate with the football and he was very smart. He should still be in the league now, even if it’s as a backup quarterback.”

Instead, Kelly became a quarterback in search of a job. He was signed by Indianapolis, splitting 2019 between the practice squad and the active roster, and being on the practice squad to start 2020. But Kelly was released by the Colts on Sept. 30.

Kelly spent 2021 doing construction work in Mississippi in the building of athletic facilities and he helped out as an offensive assistant at East Mississippi Community College, where he had starred in 2014 after being dismissed from Clemson. Then in February 2022 he signed with the Argos.

“I had heard about Chad Kelly and what happened to him in Denver and what happened to him in the NFL,’’ said Jim Barker, Toronto’s director of player personnel who was then an Argos consultant and is former CFL general manager, head coach and television analyst. “But I was impressed right away with him. He knew everything about the history of the Argonauts. … He said he felt honored to play quarterback for the Argos.”

Kelly didn’t start in 2022 as he adjusted to the CFL, a league with a bigger field, 12 players on each side and three downs, rather than four, on offense. The starter was longtime NFL and CFL journeyman McLeod Bethel-Thompson, but in the Grey Cup he suffered an injury to his throwing hand in the fourth quarter, with the Argos trailing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-17.

Kelly then entered the game. He completed 4 of 6 passes for 43 yards and ran twice for 21 yards while leading the Argos to a game-winning touchdown drive in a 24-23 win.

Kelly became the starting quarterback in 2023 and was magnificent. Leading the Argos to a 16-2 record, he threw for 4,123 yards and 23 touchdowns and was named the league’s Most Outstanding Player. Midway through that season, he signed a three-year, $1.865 million Canadian ($1.35 million U.S.) contract extension, making him the highest-paid player in the CFL, where salaries are much lower than in the NFL.

Argos radio analyst Ben Grant said Kelly “was amazing” in 2023. Butt and Lindsay looked on from afar that season and were thrilled to see their former teammate doing so well north of the border.

“I just have a relentless pursuit of being great, of trying to be perfect,’’ Kelly said. “Every time I step on the field, I got to do my job and that’s how I tried to control (that season). I managed the game and then when the game needed a play to be made, I made the play. The receivers showed up every day trying to get better and the same with the offensive line. It’s a collaborative effort. Anytime anybody wins an MVP, it’s not just them.”

The season, though, didn’t end well for the Argos, who were upset 38-17 by the Montreal Alouettes in the East Division final. And then trouble really hit for Kelly in 2024.

The lawsuit filed by the former assistant strength and conditioning coach asked for $80,000 Canadian ($57,413 U.S.) from Kelly and $85,714 ($62,600 U.S.) from the Argos. The woman alleged she was continually harassed by Kelly with unwanted romantic overtures and it escalated into incidents of Kelly using threatening language. The case was settled in mediation with no terms of the agreement released. Kelly initially was going to fight the suit, but he agreed to settle it and accept the suspension because he considered the best path at the time was to move on.

“Let’s say that the real story will get out,’’ said Kelly, who said he is limited in what he now can say. “When we’re allowed to say the real thing, the real thing will show up in light and I think they’ll be some people wondering.”

Barker said Kelly “handled it the way he had to handle it” and “took accountability.” But the 2024 season turned out to be a lot different for him than the one in 2023.

After missing the first nine regular-season games, Kelly played in the final nine games and threw for 2,451 yards with 10 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Grant said fan reaction was different that season due to the negative publicity surrounding his suspension.

“He was booed heavily on the road,’’ Grant said. “At home, there were cheers but maybe not as loud as they once were. … He wasn’t revered in the same way.”

Then in the third quarter of the East Division final against Montreal, disaster struck. Defensive lineman Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund fell on Kelly’s right leg, resulting in tibia and fibula fractures.

“It was pretty gruesome,’’ Grant said. “His leg was bent in a place it shouldn’t be and I said on the air that Chad Kelly is done for the season.”

With backup quarterback Nick Arbuckle taking over, the Argos defeated the Alouettes 30-28 and then won the Grey Cup with a 41-24 win over Winnipeg.

Kelly immediately attacked the rehabilitation process after undergoing surgery. Tremblay said he’s “never seen anybody work as hard as Chad did” to come back from an injury.

“It was definitely very tough,’’ Kelly said of the injury. “We can’t control everything, but you can control your attitude. So that’s what I tried working on the most.”

There was optimism Kelly would be able to return at some point last season but it never happened. With the Argos starting 2-8 and on their way to a 5-13 season, it was eventually decided to shut him down for the season.

Now, Kelly said he has been “fully cleared” for the May 2 start of training camp.

“I’m fully healthy,’’ he said. “It’s 100% healed. So we’re anxious to get back out there and go.”

With Kelly’s suspension and his injury behind him, there is optimism the Argos can return to their winning form.

“If Chad is healthy, the Argos are immediately a Grey Cup contender,’’ Grant said.

“I think he’ll be better than he was before,’’ Barker said. “I think he has a better understanding of the league. … I wouldn’t trade him for any quarterback in the league.”

Kelly said he now is in a better place than ever before. In addition to having become a father, his absence from playing football allowed him extra time to start his foundation.

“I love giving back to the community and little kids and this is my way of giving back,’’ Kelly said. “Something that’s dear to my heart is mental health, for sure. Kids with disabilities is another thing close to my heart. … I’ve done a toy drive before (at Christmas). I’ve talked to schools. I’m just excited to be in a position to be able to give back and hopefully let these kids learn from some of the mistakes and things I’ve done.”

Despite some of his missteps and having turned 32 on March 26, Kelly hasn’t given up hope on one day returning to the NFL. He has talked several times about that to Doug Flutie, the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback from Boston College who played in the NFL from 1986-89 with limited success, became a star in Canada from 1990-97 and then returned to the NFL from 1998-2005 and did much better.

“I pray that I’m healthy and I have a great season,’’ Kelly said. “We do great things, and you never know (about being back in the NFL). You leave it in God’s hands.”

Barker admits a return to the NFL for Kelly would be difficult, saying that due in part to his age, “I don’t see it happening, just to be honest.”

If it doesn’t happen, the snap Kelly took against the Rams will remain the only one in his NFL career. But Kelly stressed how far he has come from October 2018.

“I’m growing,’’ he said. “I’m a new person.”