Herschel Walker Trade

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The Herschel Walker Trade was the largest player trade in the history of the National Football League. The trade involved 18 players and/or draft picks. The trade was made on October 12, 1989 between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings.

1 The Trade
- 1.1 Minnesota Vikings
- 1.2 Dallas Cowboys
2 Aftermath and Legacy/Infamy
3 Source

[edit] The Trade

[edit] Minnesota Vikings

RB Herschel Walker
Dallas's 3rd round pick - 1990 (54)
San Diego's 5th round pick - 1990 (116)
Dallas's 10th round pick - 1990 (249)
Dallas's 3rd round pick - 1991 (68)

[edit] Dallas Cowboys

LB Jesse Solomon
LB David Howard
CB Isaac Holt
RB Darrin Nelson
DE Alex Stewart
Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1991 (21)
Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1990 (47)
Minnesota's 6th round pick in 1990 (158)
Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1991 (conditional) - (11)
Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1991 (conditional) - (38)
Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1993 (conditional) - (13)
Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1992 (conditional) - (40)
Minnesota's 3rd round pick in 1992 (conditional) - (71)

[edit] Aftermath and Legacy/Infamy

Dallas ended up with a total of six of Minnesota's picks over the succeeding years, two of which were used to draft Emmit Smith and Darren Woodson. Jimmy Johnson used the other draft picks to make trades with other teams around the NFL. One of the trades led to obtaining the first overall draft pick in 1991, which was used to draft Russell Maryland. In other words, the trade of Herschel Walker to the Vikings contributed largely to the Cowboys success in the early 1990s. For this reason, ESPN.com's Page 2 lists it as the 8th most lopsided trade in sports history. [1] Seventeen years later, the trade was still an easy target for satire: one ESPN columnist, assessing the impact of free agency on the NFL, noted that it had almost entirely replaced significant trades and by doing so, "took away one of the greatest shortcuts to becoming a Super Bowl champion: fleecing the Vikings." [2]

Despite Walker's performance as a Minnesota Viking, his trade was widely perceived as an exceptionally poor move for what the Vikings had to give up in order to get him, and remains one of the most frequently vilified roster moves of the team's history (indeed, in the history of Minnesota sports). "Herschel the Turkey," a mocking "honor" given out by the Star Tribune newspaper to particularly inept or disgraceful Minnesota sports personalities, is named for him.