I Made This Mistake Of Trusting A Guy Known As "Swag Kelly"

Boy oh boy do I have egg on my face now. Since before this season even started, I’ve been banging the drum for Chad Kelly to be the starting quarterback in Denver.

He looked great in the preseason!

The starter was Case Keenum!

The Broncos stink!

On Sept. 18, I wrote that it was going to be Chad “Swag” Kelly time in six weeks. Multiple people tried to warn me not to write that column.

“Never trust a juco guy,” they said.

“The guy goes by ‘Swag’, dude,” they said. “It’s not going to work out.”

But I was a juco guy. I couldn’t turn my back on one of my own. Besides, what does a nickname have to do with anything? It was all lined up. Keenum was throwing more interceptions than touchdowns and the media and fans were talking more and more about Kelly. Hell, a radio station in Denver asked to interview me on the air about this.

And I’d like to point out that technically speaking I was right when I said we were six weeks from Swag Kelly time. I just didn’t realize I was talking about time behind bars.

Five weeks after that post, Monday night, Kelly got arrested for criminal trespassing. We should always be careful about taking police narratives as gospel, but here is the Englewood (Colo.) Police Department’s account of the incident anyway.

Now, I think any worldly wise adult can read that narrative and come to some fairly accurate conclusions about what was going on there. It may or may not be a coincidence there was, as TMZ reported, a team Halloween party last night.

Kelly has been arrested before, after a bar fight in Buffalo, and he got thrown off the Clemson football team for unspecified transgressions, which is what got him to East Mississippi Community College (of Last Chance U fame) in the first place.

I should have known better. I’ve been duped by guys called Swag before, but never again. It’s Keenum all the way this year, Broncos fans, and good luck to you.