When the calendar flipped to June a couple of weeks back, the Los Angeles Rams sent shockwaves throughout the NFL by making a trade with the Cleveland Browns to acquire two-time (and reigning) Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett.
Naturally, the aftermath has seen plenty of pundits opine on some of the biggest deals in league history. One that would understandably come to mind for Dallas Cowboys fans is last year's blockbuster that saw Jerry Jones ship all-world edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers for a pair of first-round draft picks and Kenny Clark.
But the one that fans of America's Team should remember is the one that CBS Sports' Bryan DeArdo recently named the greatest trade of all time, that being the deal that the Cowboys struck with the Minnesota Vikings in 1989 involving running back Herschel Walker.
For those wondering, the Parsons deal ranked third, but let's focus on how the Walker deal went down and how it helped shape the 1990s Dallas dynasty.
Herschel Walker trade helped shape the 1990s Dallas Cowboys dynasty
1989, of course, was the year Jerry Jones purchased the Cowboys and quickly parted ways with Tom Landry, the only head coach the franchise had ever known. He replaced him with Jimmy Johnson, with whom he'd been teammates in college at the University of Arkansas and who'd recently led Michael Irvin and the Miami Hurricanes to the 1987 national championship.
Dallas had taken Irvin in the first round of the 1988 draft and then used the No. 1 overall selection in 1989 on Troy Aikman. But those two weren't yet superstars, and the only real game-changing kind of player the Cowboys had on their roster at that time was Walker.
Walker came to Big D in 1986 after spending the first few years of his pro career in the USFL, taking MVP honors in what turned out to be the league's last season in 1985.
After a solid first campaign with the Cowboys, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner earned Pro Bowl and Second-Team All-Pro selections in both 1987 and 1988, rushing for a career-high 1,514 yards in the latter season, good for second in the NFL behind only Eric Dickerson (1,659).
The Cowboys, who hadn't made the playoffs since 1985 and were coming off a 3-13 season, knew the '89 campaign wouldn't go much better. So, just a few days after a loss to the Packers in Week 5, which dropped their record to 0-5, they shipped Walker to the Minnesota Vikings in what turned out to be one of the more complicated trades the NFL had ever seen.
The basic terms of the trade were that the Vikings would receive Walker, third-, fifth- and 10th-round selections in 1990, and a 1991 third-rounder, while the Cowboys would receive linebackers Jesse Solomon and David Howard, defensive end Alex Stewart, running back Darrin Nelson, cornerback Issiac Holt and Minnesota's first-, second- and sixth-round picks in 1990.
But what some may not recall is that each of those five players also came attached with a conditional draft pick if they were cut or traded before February 1, 1990.
Nelson simply refused to go to Dallas, at which point the then-San Diego Chargers got involved in the trade, as the Cowboys sent him to the Bolts in exchange for a fifth-round pick in 1990, which Dallas then sent to Minnesota.
The Vikings felt Walker was the piece they needed to get to a Super Bowl, and while he made an immediate impact in his first game in Minnesota, rushing for 148 yards, he never lived up to what the Vikes needed him to be and was gone after just two and a half years.
Ultimately and ironically, he ended his career back with the Cowboys for two seasons (1996, 1997) after stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants.
The Vikings did make the playoffs in 1989 after going 10-6, but took a 41-13 beating at the hands of the eventual Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round. The Cowboys famously went just 1-15 that year, but the fun was just beginning in Dallas.
Knowing the picks that were attached to the aforementioned players, Johnson refused to start any of them, even though they were better than what Dallas had. And when all was said and done, all were gone by the deadline, thus giving the Cowboys these eight draft selections:
- Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1990
- Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1990
- Minnesota's 6th round pick in 1990
- Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1991 (conditional on cutting Solomon)
- Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1991 (conditional on cutting Howard)
- Minnesota's 1st round pick in 1992 (conditional on cutting Holt)
- Minnesota's 2nd round pick in 1992Â (condition met by trading away Nelson)
- Minnesota's 3rd round pick in 1992 (conditional on cutting Stewart)
Now, we won't get into every single pick and some of the other moves Dallas made other teams with some of these selections, but the biggest name the Cowboys picked up was Emmitt Smith.
Smith became the NFL's all-time leading rusher, went to eight Pro Bowls, earned five total All-Pro selections, and won both a regular-season and Super Bowl MVP trophy. So, just that selection alone would be worth it.
But in addition, Dallas also picked up Pro Bowl defensive tackle Russell Maryland, multi-time All-Pro safety Darren Woodson, and one-time All-Pro cornerback Kevin Smith, all of whom would help America's Team win three Super Bowls in the four-season stretch from 1992 to 1995.
This famous (or infamous, in Minnesota's case) trade wasn't the only reason the Cowboys' '90s dynasty became a thing, but it certainly didn't hurt.
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