emmitt thomas

Chiefs DB Coach Emmitt Thomas Retires

We normally don’t devote full-length posts to position coaches here at PFR, but there is an exception to every rule. The Chiefs have announced that Emmitt Thomas, who worked as an NFL coach for 38 seasons after a Hall-of-Fame career as a player, is retiring.

Thomas will end his football career in the same place it started. He joined the Chiefs in 1966 as an undrafted free agent and parlayed those nondescript beginnings into a 13-year playing career in which he tallied 58 interceptions as Kansas City’s star cornerback. He was an integral part of the club’s only Super Bowl championship, and those 58 picks remain a franchise record (and is the 12th-highest all-time mark). He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2008.

He began his NFL coaching career in 1981 as an assistant with the then-St.Louis Cardinals, and he won two more Super Bowl rings as a position coach with the Redskins from 1986-94. He also served as a defensive coordinator for the Packers, Vikings, and Falcons, and he got a brief shot as a head coach (on an interim basis) when Bobby Petrino abandoned the Falcons near the end of the 2007 season.

Thomas joined the Chiefs as defensive backs coach in 2010 and remained in that post through the 2018 campaign. His full remarks, as well as statements from Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt and head coach Andy Reid, can be found here.

We here at PFR congratulate Thomas on a remarkable career as a player and coach at the game’s highest level and wish him the best in retirement.