“Remember When You Didn’t Draft Me”: Josh Allen Admits Taking Shots at John Elway Over Broncos NFL Draft Snub
from Essentially Pro Football
Josh Allen received a text from a former Denver Broncos QB coach in the morning of his Draft Day but never made it to the Mile High City for two reasons.
The Buffalo Bills icon Marv Levy once gave the fanbase a battle cry, but there was a time Allen didn’t exactly resonate with it.
Buffalo was love at first sight for Allen, but the QB kept giving the Broncos then-GM a hard time.
Let’s go all the way back to 1986, when Marv Levy entered the Buffalo Bills. The Western New Yorkers were always picked on for the rough weather and for supporting a team that simply could not perform. Then, Levy came to the team, strictly to set a culture and famously gave one of the most electric NFL fanbases a battle cry they had been searching for: “Where else would you rather be than right here, right now?”
Interestingly, their franchise cornerstone, Josh Allen, who has now completely accepted his designation as a local of the small town, once felt differently.
Ahead of the 2018 NFL Draft, Allen visited Buffalo. When it had snowed in that night, and he could not leave the town, he went to the Bar-Bill and realized, “It’s kind of the only thing that I’ve ever known of small-town feel where the people are great, and the food is just as great.” Yet, his first choice was never Buffalo. But clearly, Allen forgives but never forgets, because now that the other player the Denver Broncos snubbed him for has joined the Bills, the QB has revealed that he has been calling their then-GM out for breaking promises.
“Fast forward now, it is kind of funny,” Allen said on Friday’s episode of The Matchup with Chris Harris Jr. & Emmanuel Sanders. “Bradley Chubb’s in our locker room. I’ve actually had the chance to be around (John) Elway a couple times and I jab him every time I see him. ‘Hey, you remember when you didn’t draft me?’. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I know. I know.’ So, I let him have it, but again, everything happens how it’s supposed to.
“That just kind of spoke about my journey, too, of going to junior college, having no offers, going to Laramie, not really being thought of to be anything. But every step along the way had to happen in order for me to be who I am.”
Edge rusher Bradley Chubb signed a three-year, $43.5 million contract with the Buffalo Bills in March 2026, which was a strange twist of fate. He was drafted fifth overall the same year as Bills quarterback Josh Allen came in seventh. Now, the interesting part is that he likely took Allen’s spot on the Denver Broncos roster because of a promise Allen was made.
The Denver Broncos led Josh Allen on before ditching him
No one would deny that Allen is quite literally a self-made man who never had many offers but always had a lot of potential. But when he was preparing for the 2018 NFL Draft, he received a message from the then-Broncos QB coach that morning.
“I’m not going to lie. I got a text from the quarterback coach at the time that morning saying, ‘I hope you’re there when we get to pick.’ And I was like, ‘You know what? I’m probably going to be a Bronco.’”
As we now know, they had already exhausted their only first-round pick on Chubb. They also didn’t draft a quarterback in the entire Draft. And as it turned out, they had been having QB problems since Peyton Manning hung up his cleats after winning the Super Bowl in the 2015 season until they found Bo Nix in 2024. Meanwhile, the Bills’ QB room has been the safest place, with Josh Allen cementing his place in that city.
Interestingly, Chris Harris was in the Broncos locker room in 2018 and really wanted the team to draft Allen. Clearly, Elway never got away from the QB that easily with his funny jabs. However, there were a couple of reasons why they decided not to go with him.
Why did the Broncos not draft Allen?
During the 2016 Draft, the Broncos front office spent a first-round pick on Paxton Lynch, coming out of the University of Memphis, hoping to develop him into a franchise quarterback, but that pick proved to be a bust. So, while Elway liked Allen’s prospects, head coach Vance Joseph and the offensive coaching staff were not on board with spending a first-round pick on a non-Power Five school quarterback.
“And I loved him [Josh Allen]. But it just didn’t work out,” Elway said on the ‘Pardon My Take’ podcast back in 2024. “He was my type. That was probably my biggest mistake of my GM days, was not taking Josh.”
Allen’s college stats, which showed him maintaining a 56.2% pass completion rate and a 6.8% chance of throwing a touchdown, coupled with reports of his passing inaccuracy, further raised concerns among Denver’s coaching staff. Finally, the Broncos had already signed veteran quarterback Case Keenum in free agency earlier that offseason, which also affected their decision to bolster their defense with Bradley Chubb rather than acquiring Allen.
But as they say, everything happens for a reason, and Josh Allen is more than happy to be “Right here, right now” in Buffalo.
Josh Allen has truly accepted Buffalo as his home
In retrospect, Allen thanked both the Bills, who kickstarted his NFL career, and the University of Wyoming, where he played for the Wyoming Cowboys. He also gave a nod to orthopedic surgeon and Head Team Physician for the University of Wyoming Athletics, Dr. Mark E. McKenna, who treated the November 2017 shoulder injury that almost derailed Allen’s draft chances.
“Obviously it worked out the way it was supposed to work out. I’m here in Buffalo, right?
“There’s [a] huge group of Wyoming fans and the president was here, the guy, the doctor that did my shoulder surgery, Dr. McKenna, was here. So, made the travel all the way over here. But yeah, man. I honestly thought there was a chance.”
Whether it was the food, the people, the small-town feel, or the Bills fans, Allen did finally find home 2,700 miles away from his actual home, as he confessed last year.
“I just think it’s home for me.”