Chad Kelly still hopes to get back to the NFL

Eight years after his only regular-season NFL game, quarterback Chad Kelly is still hoping for another shot.

“That’s always the goal," Kelly told Chris Tomasson of the Denver Gazette. “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."

After spending 2017 and part of 2018 with the Broncos, Kelly had two seasons with the Colts. Out of football in 2021, he landed in the CFL the following year.

And it went well. Kelly, the nephew of Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, led the Toronto Argonauts to a Grey Cup win as a backup. The next year, Chad Kelly was named the CFL's Most Outstanding Player.

Things got complicated, to say the least, in 2024. He was suspended for the first nine games of the 2024 season due to actions against a female strength coach. After he returned, a broken leg ended his season and kept him from playing in 2025.

He's now back, and the Argonauts head to training camp on May 2.

Kelly's off-field incidents made him a seventh-round pick in 2017. He was released the day after entering a random home, sat on the couch next to a woman holding a small child, and was chased away by a man wielding a vacuum-cleaner tube. He eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor second-degree trespassing.

“I sought help right after,’’ Kelly told Tomasson. “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.”

Still only 32, Kelly has performed well in Canada. He'll need to play extremely well to earn a second chance in the NFL, and he'll need to continue to show that the off-field issues are a thing of the past.