10 NFL Players Who Refused To Play For Their Teams

NFL players are some of the greatest athletes on the planet. Many of them believe that they deserve a lot of compensation for their efforts. It's hard to blame them, given the number of beatings and the amount of punishment that they take on the field.

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Due to those money issues, a lot of NFL players will refuse to play unless they are properly paid. While money isn't the only reason why players refuse to play for their teams, it is the major reason that many of these NFL greats refused to take the field.

10 Khalil Mack

Khalil Mack is one of the best NFL players in the league at this point, but that was even more true in 2018. That year, he was coming off a Pro Bowl and was recently named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Despite that, the Oakland Raiders couldn't get him a deal

Due to that, Mack decided to hold out of the season until he was paid. The Raiders eventually got fed up and traded him to the Chicago Bears for pennies on the dollar.

9 Randy Moss

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Randy Moss was unhappy in Oakland due to the team being terrible in the 2006 season. While he was still one of the best receivers in the league, he began to get a bit lazy in regard to his work ethic due to no motivation.

Moss eventually requested a trade from the team in 2007 and made it clear he wasn't going to play due to the squad being terrible. The Raiders obliged his request and then sent him to the New England Patriots, in one of the most lopsided trades ever.

8 Baker Mayfield

Baker Mayfield seemed to be the savior for the Cleveland Browns. Having had multiple successful seasons, and even leading the team to the playoffs was all blown up after his injury-prone 2021 outing. After that year, they traded for Deshaun Watson.

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Due to Watson having been accused of assault by several women, he was (and still is) facing a year-long NFL suspension. When that news came out, many wondered if Mayfield would play in his absence because he was still on the roster. He made it very clear he wouldn't and no-showed training camp, leading him to be traded to the Carolina Panthers.

7 Le'Veon Bell

Le'Veon Bell really, really wanted to get a long-term deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sadly, they didn't feel the same way and used the franchise tag on him not once, but in two straight years from 2017 to 2018.

Following the second franchise tag, Bell decided that he wasn't going to play until he got a long-term deal. He never got that deal from the Steelers, so he ended up sitting out the entire season, and didn't play until he signed with the New York Jets in 2019.

6 John Elway

John Elway was a highy-sought-after player in the 1983 NFL draft. With the Indianapolis Colts needing a quarterback, they quickly zeroed in on the college passer and looked to take him with the first pick.

However, going with his father's advice, Elway told the Colts he wouldn't play for them if drafted. The team still took the quarterback but was forced to trade him to the Denver Broncos later on.

5 Antonio Brown

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Antonio Brown has a few occasions where he's refused to play for his team. The first came in the 2018 season, when he skipped practices, leading him to be benched by the Steelers. After that, he demanded a trade.

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He was traded to the Raiders, where he got into controversy after controversy, which led to the team voiding his contract. He then demanded to be let go, which he was. Lastly, last season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Brown refused to play for the team, and even stripped down and ran off the field to avoid doing so.

4 Julio Jones

Every player has their breaking point, and Julio Jones found him in the 2020 season with the Atlanta Falcons. The team was beginning to rebuild, and the star-wide receiver had decided that enough was enough.

Following the year, he requested a trade and admitted live on-air in an interview with Shannon Sharpe that he was gone from Atlanta and wanted to play for a winning team. That call, combined with his trade request, led him to be shipped to the Tennessee Titans.

3 Jerome Bettis

Jerome Bettis is one of the most beloved running backs in NFL history. However, he almost stopped being a running back in the 1996 season. The St. Louis Rams told Bettis that he would have to convert to fullback, to which he asked to be traded.

He was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, in one of the most lopsided trades ever. Bettis went on to become a Hall of Famer, while his successor in St. Louis, Lawrence Phillips, became one of the biggest draft busts ever.

2 Eli Manning

Eli Manning decided to follow the playbook used by John Elway nearly twenty years prior. There was little doubt that he was going to be the first overall pick in 2004, but didn't want to play for the San Diego Chargers.

The team had the first overall pick and had interest, but Manning made it clear he wouldn't play for the Chargers. They still drafted him but were traded to the New York Giants instead, who had drafted Philip Rivers.

1 Bo Jackson

Bo Jackson was one of the most highly sought-after players in years when he entered the 1986 NFL draft. However, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had the first overall pick, and they were in the midst of one of the worst runs for a professional sporting organization ever.

Due to that run, Jackson told the team prior to the draft, that if they picked him, he wouldn't play. They did anyway, and the running back kept his word and opted to go play baseball instead.