6 NFL Superstars Who Quit on Team to Force a Trade

by Jeremy Block - 7/23/2026

NFL superstars who quit on their team to force a trade Deshaun Watson

In the NFL, the relationship between a player and his team is supposed to be built on mutual commitment. Contracts get signed, rosters get built around stars, and the expectation on both sides is that everyone shows up and does their job. Some players, though, reach a point where no contract, no conversation, and no amount of money is going to keep them where they are. When that happens, the gloves come off.

What separates these situations from a standard trade request is the lengths each player went to make their point. Retirement threats, season-long holdouts, walkoffs, and flat-out refusals to set foot in a building. Let's take a look at six players who quit on their team to force their way out.

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John Elway Forces His Way Out of Baltimore (1983)

Before he became one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, John Elway was the most talked about prospect in the 1983 draft and had absolutely no intention of suiting up for the Baltimore Colts.

The Colts selected him first overall anyway, likely hoping his mindset would change once he saw the contract. It did not. Elway made it clear through his father that he would pursue a professional baseball career with the New York Yankees, where he had already spent time in the minor leagues, rather than play a single snap in Baltimore.

So, the Colts eventually traded Elway to the Denver Broncos for quarterback Mark Herrmann, offensive tackle Chris Hinton, and a first-round pick. Baltimore thought they got a reasonable chunk in return, but it was nowhere close to what they were giving away.

From there, the Broncos went to five Super Bowls with Elway under center, won two of them, and retired his number after he played his entire 16-year career with them. The Colts, meanwhile, did not reach another Super Bowl until Peyton Manning arrived 23 years later.

Bo Jackson Refuses to Play for Tampa Bay (1986)

The most dominant two-sport athlete in American history wanted nothing to do with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he made sure everyone knew it. Tampa Bay selected Bo Jackson with the first overall pick in the 1986 NFL Draft, ignoring his repeated warnings that he had no interest in playing for them. Adding to that, the Bucs decided to take it a notch further and violated NCAA rules by flying Jackson to their facility on a private plane during a pre-draft visit, which cost him his remaining college baseball eligibility at Auburn.

With no surprise, Jackson followed through on his promise without hesitation. He turned down a five-year, $7.6 million contract offer from the Buccaneers, forcing them to forfeit his rights entirely, and instead signed with the Kansas City Royals to pursue baseball full time. The Buccaneers received nothing for the first overall pick, no compensation, no trade, no return whatsoever.

Jackson eventually joined the Los Angeles Raiders the following year as a part-time player while continuing his baseball career, collecting 554 rushing yards in just seven games played his first season. Tampa Bay's decision to draft a player who explicitly told them not to is still regarded as one of the worst front office decisions in NFL Draft history.

Eric Dickerson Forces His Way Out of the Rams (1987)

Coming off a season in which he set the all-time single-season rushing record with 2,105 yards in 1984, Eric Dickerson wanted to be paid accordingly, and he had every reason to. The Los Angeles Rams disagreed. What followed was a two-year battle between one of the best running backs in NFL history and a franchise that refused to meet his market value, which eventually cost the Rams one of their most valuable assets for far less than he was worth.

Dickerson decided to put his foot down, held out of training camp in 1985, missed the first two games of the season, and never fully resolved his contract situation with Los Angeles. By 1987 the relationship had deteriorated beyond repair, and the Rams traded him to the Indianapolis Colts in a massive three-team deal that also involved the Buffalo Bills and ten players total.

Dickerson went on to rush for 1,011 yards in just nine games for Indianapolis after the trade and made the Pro Bowl three more times. The Rams never found a replacement who came close to what they gave away, and the franchise went into a decade-long decline.

Carson Palmer Retires Rather Than Play for Cincinnati (2011)

Few players in NFL history have made the "I'm retired" threat and actually followed through on it the way Carson Palmer did. After a sloppy 4-12 season with the Bengals in 2010, Palmer told ownership he was done and wanted out.

Bengals owner Mike Brown refused to trade him, told the media publicly that Palmer had "retired," and made it clear the team had zero plans to accommodate him. Palmer stayed home anyway. He sat out the entire offseason, missed training camp, and was still nowhere to be found when the regular season kicked off. One unnamed Bengals player summed it up perfectly when asked about the situation: "You mean the year he quit on us?"

Brown held firm for six games until the Oakland Raiders, desperate for a quarterback after losing Jason Campbell to an injured collarbone, came calling with a first-round pick and a second-rounder. That was all it took.

The Bengals caved and shipped Palmer west, where he went on to revive his career and eventually drag the Arizona Cardinals to the NFC Championship Game in 2015. Brown got his draft picks, Palmer got his exit, and Cincinnati used those picks to keep building around Andy Dalton. Not a bad outcome for a franchise that spent most of the year pretending its starting quarterback did not exist.

Le'Veon Bell Sits Out an Entire Season (2018)

Le'Veon Bell had been one of the best running backs in football during his time in Pittsburgh, making three Pro Bowls and finishing among the league's top rushers multiple times. When the Steelers placed the franchise tag on him for a second consecutive year, Bell made a decision that shocked the entire league. He sat out 365 days, forfeited $14.5 million in tag money, and let himself become a free agent rather than sign on Pittsburgh's terms in 2018.

The Steelers went 9-6-1 without him and missed the playoffs, giving Bell all the ammunition he needed to point to as proof of exactly what he was worth. Here is the thing though: being right and being smart are not always the same thing.

The Jets signed Bell in 2019 to a four-year, $52.5 million contract, and he never came close to replicating what he had done in Pittsburgh, rushing for just 863 yards in two seasons. He was released by New York less than two seasons into the deal and spent the rest of his career bouncing between rosters looking for a soft landing that never came. Bell even went public years later admitting he should never have left Pittsburgh.

Deshaun Watson Refuses to Practice or Play for Houston (2021)

The situation in Houston was unlike anything the NFL had seen in years. Deshaun Watson, coming off a 4,823-yard, 33-touchdown season and arguably playing the best football of his career, submitted a formal trade request to the Texans in January 2021 and then stopped showing up to everything. Just like that, cold turkey.

Watson held firm for the entire offseason, showing up only when legally required to avoid forfeiting game checks. The Texans kept him on the roster through the 2021 season, during which he did not play a single snap due to a combination of his trade demand and the civil lawsuits filed against him. Cleveland eventually traded three first-round picks and three additional picks to acquire him in March 2022, then handed him a five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract, the richest guarantee in NFL history at the time.

Watson got his exit. The Texans got their compensation. The Browns, meanwhile, got a quarterback who played just six games in his first season due to an 11-game suspension, went 1-5 when he finally took the field, and has been injured or unavailable for most of his time in Cleveland since.

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Start:	July 24, 2026 @ 1:00 PM
Expert:	Raphael Esparza (VSI)
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6 NFL Superstars Who Quit on Team to Force a Trade

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