Report: John Elway tried to hire Mike Shanahan; Joe Ellis blocked it

In a bombshell dropped by Woody Paige from The Gazette on Monday, the Denver Broncos and John Elway held secret meetings with former head coach Mike Shanahan in early 2018 to become the next head coach of the team.

The two would have aggressively pursued Kirk Cousins to reset the franchise and move forward with a Shanahan/Cousins pairing. Instead, Joe Ellis stepped in and blocked the potential hiring from ever happening bringing forth another year with Vance Joseph and Elway having to settle for Case Keenum.

Ellis is apparently more concerned about potential power struggles within the organization than winning and it would appear, Ellis is interfering with and acting as owner of the Broncos - to the franchises detriment. If true, I believe he should step back and let Elway actually do his job.

Shanahan remains the winningest coach in Broncos history for those who have coached over 70 games and could have likely done much more with the talent the Broncos have on offense in 2018.

Instead, we get to wait for the next way Ellis will decide the fate of this franchise. He was the man who brought in Josh McDaniels too, you know. And now he could end up being the man who led this franchise to back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 1972.