Denver Broncos executive vice president of football operations John Elway ended his four years with head coach John Fox with a one-hour meeting and a warm embrace. He said both sides knew the time was right to split.

“In any relationship — you are always going to have bumpy batches,” Elway said. “I think the biggest thing between us was ‘how are we going to get to that next step?’ … We did not agree on how to get to the next step.”

The Broncos have not yet formally requested permission to interview any candidate, Elway said, but he did acknowledge options available that he knows a lot about. That would include Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, who was Elway’s backup quarterback with the Broncos before he became offensive coordinator of the Elway-led Denver team in 1995.

Elway said offensive coordinator Adam Gase and defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio are candidates for the Broncos’ job and repeated that reports of the coaching staff being released from their contracts are “not true. Misinformation.” Gase and Del Rio have been granted permission to interview elsewhere but remain under contract with the Broncos.

Fox won 48 games and four division championships in four seasons with the franchise. He had the third-best record in the NFL since 2011.

“It obviously didn’t get where we wanted it to get,” Elway said. “Conversation with John yesterday, we both came out with the idea it was time to move on for both of us. The one thing that came out of that meeting especially on his side of it was the timing. … It was the right time.”

Elway said he had a great conversation with quarterback Peyton Manning on Monday, but they agreed not to talk about Manning’s future. In Elway’s opinion, Manning should return — and play for the Broncos.

“I think he does” have another season of football in him, Elway said. “If you think about Peyton Manning, think about the numbers he put up for his entire career and think about the numbers he had in the final five-six games … he was still playing at a high level.”

Because of emotions, Elway said he met with Manning as late in the day Monday as possible and encouraged Manning to take four or five weeks until they set another meeting to talk about 2015, even if Fox is not the head coach.

“It really was a good run,” Elway said. “When I first got the job four years ago, the first thing I needed to do was hire a coach. John was the right guy at the time.”

Elway wouldn’t divulge any specific differences between he and Fox.

Elway said he wants to put the things into play that helped the Broncos get to the next level to win Super Bowls in the late 1990s.

If the Broncos returned to the Super Bowl rather than a divisional playoff loss to Indianapolis, Elway said he likely wouldn’t have made the move.

“We were full steam ahead,” Elway said of his mindset entering Sunday’s game, a loss to the Colts. “I think John, from his side, exploring what his options from the short time after the game until we met (Monday) at 2 o’clock, helped make the decision. There’s no one person to blame. We have not chosen to peak at the right time. … If there’s one thing I can point at, it’s that we haven’t finished as strong as we started.”