The 8 NFL Coaches Who’ve Been Traded To Another Team

NFL teams are constantly trading players in the hopes of putting together an optimal roster, and while coaches tend to have some input into those decisions, they usually aren’t the people who end up at the center of a transaction. However, there are more than a few instances where they’ve been traded from one franchise to another.

As is the case with every NFL player, coaches sign with the team they work for and can’t simply decide to take their talents to another one if they decide they want a change of scenery if they’re still under contract.

With that said, coaches can be traded just like players, which is a relatively rare occurrence that’s transpired eight times in NFL history.

Don Shula

While this wasn’t necessarily a trade in a traditional sense, it ended up being one in principle due to the series of events that led to Don Shula leaving the Colts for the Dolphins in the wake of the 1969 season.

Shula frequently butted heads with Colts owner Carroll Rosenbloom during the seven seasons he spent with a franchise that was then based in Baltimore, and he pounced at the chance to jump ship when the Dolphins offered to pay him $70,000 a year, give a 10% stake in the team, and the ability to serve as GM.

That led to the Colts accusing Miami of tampering, and commissioner Pete Rozelle ultimately forced the Dolphins to fork over their first-round pick in the 1971 NFL Draft to complete the de facto trade.

It turned out to be a pretty solid swap for both sides, as the Colts won the Super Bowl during Don McCafferty’s first year at the helm. Shula immediately transformed the Dolphins into contenders and led them to three straight Super Bowls between 1971 and 1973 while winning the last two.

Bill Parcells

The Jets are disproportionally represented on this list thanks to how many trades of this nature they’ve been involved in, and we’re kicking things off with Bill Parcells.

The Patriots lured Parcells out of retirement ahead of the 1993 season, and he helped them stage a fairly drastic turnaround that reached its apex with a loss to the Packers in Super Bowl XXXI.

The Big Tuna did not see eye-to-eye with Robert Kraft on a number of personnel decisions and opted to call it quits after his fourth and final season in New England.

The Jets were also looking to go in a new direction after a team led by Rich Kotite went 1-15, and they attempted to skirt the rules by hiring Bill Belichick to serve as head coach while bringing Parcells on as an advisor.

The Patriots understandably cried foul, and they received four draft picks spread across the first four rounds over the next few years as compensation after Paul Tagliabue stepped in to mediate the dispute.

Parcells led the Jets to a lone AFC Championship berth during the three years he spent in New York before yet another trade transpired between the two sides that we’ll get to in a moment.

Mike Holmgren

The Packers were in the midst of a 10-year playoff drought that Mike Holmgren snapped during his second season after taking over in 1992, which marked the start of six consecutive playoff appearances for a Green Bay team that won the aforementioned Super Bowl against New England before losing to the Broncos in The Big Game the following year.

Prior to the start of the 1999 campaign, the Seahawks poached Holmgren with an eight-year, $32 million contract that led to him tendering his resignation. He still had a year left on his deal with the Packers, so Seattle had to give Green Bay a second-round draft pick to finalize things.

Holmgren would end up spending the next decade with the Seahawks during a somewhat rocky tenure where he led the team to the playoffs five times—including a run that ended with a loss to the Steelers in  Super Bowl XL.

Bill Belichick

This is the second trade involving the Jets and the Patriots, and I think most NFL fans know how this one ended up panning out.

On January 3rd, 2000, the Jets announced they’d tapped Bill Belichick to replace Bill Parcells. However, the following day, he infamously scrawled his resignation note on a cocktail napkin before using what was supposed to be his introductory press conference to explain why he wasn’t taking the job.

The Patriots subsequently announced they’d hired him after firing Pete Carroll, but the Jets insisted they still had him under contract before the matter was settled when they received a first-round pick in the 2000 NFL Draft from New England.

The 199th pick in the sixth round of that draft ended up being the most consequential when you consider the Patriots used it to select Tom Brady, who won six Super Bowls while playing under Belichick.

Jon Gruden

Jon Gruden led the Raiders to back-to-back AFC Championship appearances during the last two of his four years as a coach of the Raiders before the Buccanneers reached out to Al Davis about the possibility of hiring him ahead of the 2002 season.

The owner responded by floating a package involving two first-round picks, a couple of second-rounders, and $8 million while operating under the impression it would be too rich for Tampa Bay to agree.

However, the Bucs pulled the trigger and immediately reaped the benefits when Gruden led them to their first Super Bowl victory in franchise history. He spent seven years in Tampa Bay (and added two more playoff appearances) before eventually reuniting with the Raiders in 2018.

Herm Edwards

What’s that? Another trade involving the Jets? You betcha.

Herm Edwards landed his first job as a head coach in the NFL when the Jets hired him in 2001, and while they made the playoffs three times during his tenure, he was about as average as you can get when you consider he went 39-41 over the course of five seasons.

The Jets went 4-12 in 2005, but Chiefs owner Carl Peterson was nonetheless convinced Edwards was the best guy to fill the void in the wake of Dick Vermeil’s retirement.

Kansas City agreed to send the Jets a fourth-round pick in the 2006 NFL Draft to acquire Edwards, who only spent three seasons with the Chiefs while posting a 15-33 record (which included a 2-14 showing during his final year).

Bruce Arians

This trade doesn’t boast as much drama as the other ones I’ve mentioned so far, as Bruce Arians decided to retire at the end of the 2017 season to bring his five-year run with the Cardinals to an end.

He still had a year remaining on his contract at the time, so when the Buccaneers convinced him to don the headset in 2019 after a one-season hiatus, they sent a sixth-round pick to the Cardinals in what was essentially a formality when you consider they also got a seventh-rounder in return.

Arians ended up spending four seasons as the head coach in Tampa Bay, and he was the second skipper to win a Super Bowl with the Bucs in the wake of a trade with a little bit of help from Tom Brady.

Sean Payton

This situation closely mirrors the last one, as Sean Payton announced his decision to retire after the end of the 2021 season following a 16-year run with the Saints (although he only coached for 15 of them due to the Bountygate suspension he served in 2012).

A number of teams reached out to Payton during the 2023 hiring cycle, and he ultimately accepted the job as the head coach of the Broncos. He was still under contract with the Saints, so New Orleans got a first and second-round pick while sending a third-rounder back to Denver to seal the deal.