The Denver Broncos almost pulled off a blockbuster trade that would have landed one of the best wide receivers in league history -- Calvin Johnson -- in the Mile High City.
Believe it or not, although this news is circulating again, it's not actually new information. It's been known for nearly two decades now that the Broncos attempted to make the Detroit Lions a blockbuster offer for the 2nd overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft for the right to draft Johnson and add him to a core of players that was one of the most impressive in the league, but the Lions didn't bite.
What we didn't know is what 850 KOA Broncos and NFL insider Benjamin Allbright recently just stated about the Broncos' attempts to get Johnson at the time, which is that the Broncos didn't just reach out to the Lions, but also the team with the #1 overall pick: The Oakland Raiders.
And they apparently had a verbal agreement in place...
Broncos had verbal deal in place with Raiders to get Calvin Johnson in 2007
What if Al Davis doesn’t back out of the verbally agreed to trade in the 2007 draft with the Broncos, who were going to move from 17 to 1 and take Calvin Johnson. https://t.co/KaMVgpLT2W
— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) July 13, 2025
And if this is the case, it would be one of the wildest hindsight developments in Denver Broncos history. Obviously, the Broncos and Raiders don't like each other as division rivals, but back in this particular time, the rivalry between the two teams was even more deeply rooted.
Mike Shanahan was the head coach and GM of the Broncos at the time, and Al Davis was still pulling the strings for the Raiders. Shanahan hated Davis's guts for the way things went when Shanahan was employed by the Raiders, so any sort of discussions like this would have been beyond shocking at the time.
But desperate times called for desperate measures. Shanahan's team was only one season removed from making it to the AFC Championship Game, and he felt like he had the core of players with young quarterback Jay Cutler to be able to make another run. And shoot, he might have been right.
Adding Calvin Johnson, at the time, would have given the Broncos a group offensively that included Cutler, Brandon Marshall, Tony Scheffler, and more. It wasn't until the 2008 NFL Draft that the Broncos added the duo of Ryan Clady at left tackle and Eddie Royal at receiver, but having Calvin Johnson might have put us all on a different timeline entirely.
In the 2007 NFL Draft, the Raiders ended up with JaMarcus Russell, the Broncos ended up with Jarvis Moss, and Calvin Johnson ended up with the Lions. It seems like Al Davis allegedly backing out of a blockbuster trade made everybody losers in that outcome.