Best Cincinnati Bengals Trades of All Time: From Chad Johnson to Carson Palmer

The Cincinnati Bengals have made 122 trades in their 57 seasons as a franchise, and many of them have been minor transactions involving players whose names most fans can’t remember.

Others have been face-palm decisions that belong on the list of the worst trades in team history.

And there is one that belongs on the list of most unique trades in NFL annals, when Cincinnati dealt wide receiver Tim George to the Detroit Lions for $100 cash in 1974.

But the Bengals have been on the winning side of plenty of lopsided deals as well.

Here are the 10 best trades in team history:

Ranking the Greatest Trades in Cincinnati Bengals History

10) Acquired undisclosed draft picks from New England for Chad Johnson – July 29, 2011.

Days after the lockout ended, the Bengals continued their clearing of the deck for a roster reboot centered around Andy Dalton and A.J. Green.

After the trainwreck that was the 2010 season (4-12), the Bengals extended head coach Marvin Lewis with an infamously disastrous press conference, and quarterback Carson Palmer threatened to retire if he wasn’t traded.

Chad Johnson was 33 at the time of the trade and would only record another 15 receptions before he retired.

Cincinnati received two conditional picks: a fifth-rounder in 2012, which the Bengals used on wide receiver Marvin Jones, and a sixth-rounder in 2013, which turned into wide receiver Cobi Hamilton.

Boomer and Chad…two of the best to ever wear stripes 👏 pic.twitter.com/aWBlchrJEx

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) July 20, 2023

9) Acquired Rufus Mayes for Bill Staley and Harry Gunner – Jan. 21, 1970

The Chicago Bears selected offensive lineman Rufus Mayes out of Ohio State with the No. 14 pick in the 1969 draft, but the team dealt him to Cincinnati after just one season.

In 2004, the Chicago Tribune rated the trade the sixth worst in Bears history.

Mayes played nine seasons for the Bengals, appearing in 110 games with 98 starts.

Defensive tackle Bill Staley, whom Cincinnati had selected in the second round of its inaugural draft in 1968, lasted just three seasons in Chicago, starting 21 games before retiring,

Defensive end Harry Gunner played just one season for the Bears, appearing in 14 games with no starts before he was out of the league.

8) Acquired first- and third-round picks from Washington for Dan Wilkinson – Feb. 26, 1998

The Bengals selected Dan “Big Daddy” Wilkinson with the No. 1 pick in 1994, and the Ohio State product never lived up to his draft position — although you’re not going to find too many defensive tackles with 25 sacks in a four-year span, even in today’s pass-happy NFL.

Wilkinson went on to have a 13-year career, and he only logged another 29.5 sacks in his nine seasons after leaving Cincinnati.

The Bengals turned the two picks they received for Wilkinson into a pair of solid starters for the next several seasons. With the first-round pick, they took linebacker Brian Simmons, who played in 137 games with 118 starts in his nine-season career in Cincinnati.

The third-round pick became guard Mike Goff, who played sparingly in his first two seasons but started 61 of 64 games in his final four seasons with the Bengals.

7) Acquired first-, third- and fifth-round picks from Denver for the rights to Ricky Hunley – Oct. 9, 1984.

The Bengals drafted Hunley with the No. 7 pick in the 1984 draft but couldn’t agree to terms with the linebacker, making it one of the worst draft picks in team history.

The contract stalemate slogged into October, which is when the organization cut bait and dealt Hunley for three draft picks.

Two of those three picks ended up being key players on the 1988 Super Bowl team and beyond. The Bengals took wide receiver Tim McGee with the 1985 first-round pick they got from the Broncos and safety David Fulcher with the 1986 third-round selection.

This trade could have been higher on the list had the fifth-round pick turned into something special, but punter Greg Horne only appeared in four games before being released after losing his job to Scott Fulhage.

Hunley, meanwhile, started just 30 games with three interceptions and 2.5 sacks in a seven-year career.

6) Acquired Reggie Nelson from Jacksonville for David Jones and a conditional future draft pick – Sept. 4, 2010.

This was thievery, pure and simple. Reggie Nelson was Jacksonville’s first-round pick in 2007, and he went on to appear in 93 of a possible 96 games during his six seasons with the Bengals, including a Pro Bowl selection in 2015.

Nelson recorded 23 interceptions for Cincinnati, which ranks sixth in team history.

David Jones, a cornerback, started just seven games in his three seasons with the Bengals and would start only five more in the seasons he played after the trade.

The conditional pick the Jaguars received was No. 228 in 2012. That ended up being defensive tackle Jeris Pendleton, who only played five games in the league.

5) Acquired cornerback Deltha O’Neal, a first-round pick, and a fourth-round pick from Denver for a first-round pick – April 9, 2004.

This was the first trade of the Marvin Lewis era, and it stood up as the second best of the 21 made during his 16 seasons.

Deltha O’Neal brought a veteran presence to a young defense and was a centerpiece of the franchise turnaround, highlighted by his NFL-best 10 interceptions in 2005 to help the Bengals win the division and make the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.

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The fourth-round pick turned into defensive lineman Robert Geathers, who played his entire 11-year career in Cincinnati, appearing in 152 games with 104 starts.

All the Bengals had to do was trade back seven spots in the first round to land O’Neal and Geathers.

This one could have been higher on the list if they had stayed at No. 24 with the pick from Denver and took running back Steven Jackson. Instead, they traded back again to No. 26 and took running back Chris Perry.

4) Acquired B.J. Hill for Billy Price – Aug. 30, 2021.

Billy Price, the team’s first-round pick in 2018, had lost his starting job to Trey Hopkins, so the Bengals dealt him for a New York Giants rotational defensive tackle who became so much more in Cincinnati.

Hill had 5.5 sacks in his first season with the Bengals, earning a three-year, $30 million extension. He’s started 33 games the last two seasons with 7.5 sacks, four fumble recoveries and two interceptions.

He also had a game-changing interception against Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes that helped send the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI with an upset of the Chiefs in the 2021 AFC Championship Game.

Price, meanwhile, started 26 games in 2021-22, but did not play in 2023 and recently had to retire due to complications from a blood clot.

Back-to-back games with an INT for @BJHill5!#ProBowlVote x BJ Hill pic.twitter.com/bPQDPsCsec

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 16, 2023

3) Acquired first- and second-round picks from Oakland for Carson Palmer – Oct. 18, 2011.

The 100th trade in franchise history essentially was a something-for-nothing deal as Carson Palmer was never going to play for the team again.

The Bengals weren’t going to acquiesce to his trade demand until the Raiders made a sweetheart offer no reasonable person would decline.

Cincinnati used the 2012 first-round pick it received to draft cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick, who played in 99 games with 67 starts in eight seasons with the team.

The 2013 second-round pick turned into running back Giovani Bernard, who appeared in 115 games in his eight seasons with the Bengals.

Palmer went on to play another seven seasons, including a Pro Bowl campaign in 2015 when he led Arizona to a 13-3 record and NFC West title. But he never was going to play for the Bengals again, so his post-trade production is almost moot in terms of ranking the success of the deal.

2) Acquired a first-round pick from Tampa Bay for Jack Thompson – June 2, 1983.

One of the biggest draft busts in team history, Jack Thompson was thought to be a succession plan for Ken Anderson.

But the owner of one of the best nicknames in team history – The Throwin’ Samoan – failed to take advantage of his limited opportunities, and Anderson continued to play at an elite level into the 80s.

Thompson only started five games in his four seasons in Cincinnati and completed just 47.3% of his passes with 13 touchdowns and 19 interceptions.

The first-round pick Cincinnati got for him ended up being No. 1 overall, which they subsequently traded to New England for four draft picks.

Getting the top pick in the draft for a struggling backup quarterback is the stuff of legend. It’s the only reason this trade is so high on the list.

What the Bengals did with that No. 1 pick should be an entry on the franchise’s worst trades list.

Cincinnati turned the No. 1 pick into first-round defensive end Pete Koch (16 games, no starts in one season with the team), first-round offensive lineman Brian Blados (107 games, 63 starts in eight seasons with the Bengals), fifth-round cornerback Lee Davis (seven games, no starts in one season) and 10th-round running back Brent Ziegler (never played).

1) Acquired James Brooks from San Diego for Pete Johnson – May 29, 1984.

The franchise leader in touchdowns (70) and rushing yards (5,421) at the time of the trade, running back Pete Johnson was 30 years old, had ballooned to 275 pounds, and was a year removed from trading testimony for immunity in a cocaine trial that earned him a four-game suspension from the NFL.

James Brooks, meanwhile, was just 25 and an ascending star. He went on to become a centerpiece of the Bengals’ sustained offensive excellence for several years, including a trip to Super Bowl XXIII in 1988.

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In Brooks’ eight seasons in Cincinnati, the Bengals led the NFL in total offense twice, were in the top three four times, and in the top five six times. They also led the league in rushing twice, finished second once, and ranked in the top six six times.

Brooks finished No. 2 on our list of greatest Bengals running backs of all time.