From what the Broncos beat-writers have written and said about the inside story in Dove Valley:
1. Wade wanted to be the highest paid DC, and Elway didn't want to keep him. He wanted to promote Joe Woods, who was the up and coming guy for a DC job for some reason that only the inbred minds of the NFL understand. For some reason, a guy becomes the "next hot commodity" and the reasons never make sense in retrospect. It's just a herd mentality or something. Hence Joe Woods and goodbye Wade!
2. The 2018 draft was largely due to the influence of Gary Kubiak whom Elway brought back this year to be the Draft Guru for offensive players. In years past you saw tons of idiot selections.
Just look at the 2017 draft, outside of Garrett Bolles:
3. Elway had a plan. He told the media what it was. He never intended to take a QB not any QB. That was because "we're not kicking Paxton to the curb." He announced this at his presser. If they drafted a 1st round QB they would have to release Paxton. There would be no point in keeping him at that point, since obviously, Keenum would start until the rookie QB was ready some time this season. Lynch would be totally supplanted.
Elway wasn't willing to do that, no matter how loudly the fans yelled for Paxton to be gone. His stupid obsession with proving himself right about his draft blunder lasted right up till August 2018 when every fan in Denver could see that Paxton was a bust at least 1 year prior to this, when he failed to win the job over a 7th rounder who wasn't great - Trevor. Not Elway though. He kept making excuses until Paxton failed to do anything in his 3rd preseason forcing Elway to finally agree to cut him.
And he fell straight out of the league for good. I don't think he even really wants to come back now. I think he realizes being an NFL QB is just a lot more work than he really wants to do.