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With the Herschel Walker trade 20 years ago, the Minnesota Vikings helped build a Dallas Cowboys dynasty
Mark Craig, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The Vikings consider Brett Favre the final piece on a returning playoff team that's built to make a run at Super Bowl XLIV. So far, Favre has been fantastic, the Vikings are 4-0 and together they're a 10-point favorite to beat the winless Rams in St. Louis on Sunday.
Twenty years ago, the Vikings also were a returning playoff team that was built to make a run at the Super Bowl. The final piece that year was Herschel Walker. Or at least he was supposed to be, according to Mike Lynn, the general manager who acquired Walker on Oct. 12, 1989, in what is widely regarded from the Vikings' perspective as one of the more infamous trades in sports history.
"I've got no regrets over it," Lynn said by phone this week from the Oxford Club, a private club he has owned the past 10 years in Oxford, Miss. "I did what I thought was the right thing at the time."
The trade ultimately involved 18 players and draft picks, still the largest in NFL history. The Vikings surrendered five players, three of them defensive starters, and eight draft picks, including three in the first round, three in the second and one in the third.
The Cowboys eventually packaged those picks for more picks or higher ones while selecting players such as NFL career rushing leader Emmitt Smith, defensive tackle and No. 1 overall pick Russell Maryland, safety Darren Woodson, cornerback Kevin Smith, receiver Alvin Harper and linebacker Dixon Edwards. They went from 1-15 in 1989 to winning Super Bowls after the 1992, 1993 and 1995 seasons.
Meanwhile, the Vikings went 21-23 with Walker before releasing him in May 1992. Their only playoff appearance was a 41-13 loss at San Francisco in the divisional round in 1989.
"You can't blame Herschel," said former Vikings receiver Anthony Carter. "The ball was in Mike Lynn's hands, and it was one of the horrible trades in sports history. All the blame for that goes on one individual, and that's Mike Lynn. Sorry to say that, but it's the honest to God truth."
Lynn said this week that he "still hasn't figured out" how and why the Walker trade went so awry.
"It's been a mystery to me all along what happened," he said. "All that we lacked on that team was a big back. Herschel was the best big back in the league. He gained 1,500 yards the previous year. He was in marvelous shape when he got here. It would have worked out."
Lynn points to Walker's debut as the example of what he thought he was getting in the deal. In a 26-14 victory over the Packers at the Metrodome, Walker ran for 148 yards on 18 carries. On his first touch from scrimmage, he literally ran out of his shoe while gaining 47 yards.
"Everybody sure thought it was a great trade that day," Lynn said. "But something happened. I don't know what it was, but whatever he had, he didn't have it any longer. It was like a great horse not having it. Just gone overnight or in a week."
Throw out his rushing debut with the Vikings, and Walker averaged 49.9 yards rushing per game in 43 appearances with the Vikings. That includes 29 yards in the playoff loss to the 49ers in 1989.
Players who were on that team say they admired Walker's work ethic and team-first attitude. They also say that his running style simply didn't fit the offense under coach Jerry Burns and offensive coordinator Bob Schnelker.
Walker was a Heisman Trophy winner at Georgia, a star in the USFL and a Pro Bowl player who had a combined 2,019 yards rushing and receiving with the Cowboys in 1988. All of his success came as a classic I-formation tailback who lined up 8 yards deep with a fullback in front of him.
"That was a problem when he got here," Hall of Fame guard Randall McDaniel said. "We ran traps and counters all the time. We were a split-back formation, which is a totally different setup. We asked Herschel to move closer to the line, split the backfield and do things he just wasn't used to doing."
Walker never rushed for 1,000 yards in a season with the Vikings. After being released, he ran for 1,070 yards with the Eagles in 1992.
"It was not for a lack of trying in Minnesota," Burns said last week. "He used to come into my office and tell me he'd do anything, even cover kicks and punts if that's what could help us win."
Over the course of his 12-year NFL career, Walker's 18,168 combined net yards were the second highest in NFL history when he left the game. Ironically, he retired as a Cowboy after playing the 1996 and 1997 seasons in Dallas. He could not be reached for this story.
Walker's ineffectiveness in Minnesota was only half the problem with the trade in 1989. The Vikings also gave up starting cornerback Issiac Holt, starting linebackers Jesse Solomon and David Howard, 1988 leading rusher Darrin Nelson and backup defensive end Alex Stewart.
And this was no slouch team. It was two years removed from playing in the NFC Championship Game, where it lost, 17-10, to a Commanders team that went on to win the Super Bowl. In 1988, the Vikings had seven Pro Bowl players, went 11-5, beat the Rams at home in a wild-card playoff game and lost, 34-9, at San Francisco in the divisional round.
At the time of the trade, the Vikings were 3-2. The Cowboys were 0-5. Some Vikings' players say they didn't learn about the trade until reporters called asking for a reaction. Others say they found out in the team meeting room that morning.
"We were just sitting there in the meeting room when they started calling out players who were in the trade," Carter said. "It was devastating. We lost a lot of good football players that morning."
The number of picks surrendered is the part of the trade that is remembered most. What's sometimes forgotten is five of the picks -- two in the first round, two in the second and one in the third -- were conditional. In the agreement, the Cowboys were allowed to use the players for the 1989 season and then choose to keep them or take the picks after the season.
"I thought of the players that we sent them, they would keep a number of those players," Lynn said this week. "So I thought the number of draft choices would not be as great as it was."
Lynn, however, was outmaneuvered by Jimmy Johnson, the Cowboys' rookie NFL coach and the mastermind of the Walker trade. Johnson had a generous offer from the Browns in hand but used it to pressure Lynn into offering him an even sweeter deal before a 6:30 p.m. deadline on Oct. 11, 1989.
Johnson, now a studio analyst for Fox, said this week he never had any intention of keeping the players.
"When we made the trade, Darrin Nelson didn't show up," Johnson said. "Didn't want to play on a bad team or whatever. I didn't care. I wasn't going to keep him anyway. I wanted those [conditional] picks. He didn't like the trade, so I said, 'Fine, hit the road.' "
Nelson was dealt to the Chargers. He eventually returned to the Vikings.
As for the four players who did report to Dallas, Johnson would not allow his assistants to start any of them even though, as Johnson said, "They were the best players we had."
"I knew if we started them, the coaches would like them and try to talk me into keeping them," Johnson said. "And then the fans would say, 'Why is this guy releasing our best players?' "
Johnson also had it in his mind all along that he would find a way to keep the conditional picks and some of the players. Maybe that's why at the news conference to announce the trade in Dallas, Johnson called it "the great train robbery."
After the 1989 season, Jones called Lynn to tell him he liked the players but was still going to cut them all.
"If I cut the players at that point, Mike got nothing," Johnson said. "He had no choice but to make another trade."
Lynn hung up before Johnson could make him an offer in which the Cowboys would keep the picks and the players while the Vikings got something in return.
Johnson said he had to get the league office to intervene since Lynn wouldn't talk to him. In February 1990, Johnson traded a third- and a 10th-round pick in 1990 and a third-round pick in 1991 to the Vikings so that he could keep the players and the picks.
The last of the former Vikings that Johnson kept were gone by the 1993 season. As for the Vikings, well, they were at least able to use the third-round pick in 1991 to select receiver Jake Reed.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who bought the team before the 1989 season, last month called the trade "the single most important decision in the Cowboys winning those three Super Bowls." He cited the point system for draft picks that Johnson popularized throughout the NFL.
"Based on the value of our picks and the value of Minnesota's picks, it was off the chart," Jones said. "If you added up the value for those three years [1990-92], we had more points in those three years than we had in our next 10 drafts combined."
Johnson says it's an oversimplification to say the Walker trade led directly to the Cowboys winning three Super Bowls.
"In my five years in Dallas, I made 51 trades," Johnson said. "That's more than the rest of the league made combined. You can't really trace that trade because of all the other trades that came after it. It's like the branches of a tree."
Lynn said the criticism he's gotten over the years hasn't bothered him.
"That's because I don't hear it," said Lynn, who lost his job running the day-to-day operations of the Vikings when Roger Headrick assumed control as president and CEO on Jan. 1, 1991. "I'm living here in Mississippi. About the only thing they care about here at the club is Ole Miss.
"And, looking back on it, it's like the Vikings this year. What's the only thing they needed? They needed a quarterback. They did whatever it took to get a quarterback. I felt the same way 20 years ago about a big back."
Obviously, the biggest difference between Favre and Walker is Favre only cost the Vikings money out of owner Zygi Wilf's pocket.
"When you give up all the players and the draft choices we gave them, I think [Lynn] built the Cowboys' dynasty for the '90s," former safety Joey Browner said. "I can't help but think those were Super Bowls that possibly could have been won here in Minnesota."
Mark Craig, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The Vikings consider Brett Favre the final piece on a returning playoff team that's built to make a run at Super Bowl XLIV. So far, Favre has been fantastic, the Vikings are 4-0 and together they're a 10-point favorite to beat the winless Rams in St. Louis on Sunday.
Twenty years ago, the Vikings also were a returning playoff team that was built to make a run at the Super Bowl. The final piece that year was Herschel Walker. Or at least he was supposed to be, according to Mike Lynn, the general manager who acquired Walker on Oct. 12, 1989, in what is widely regarded from the Vikings' perspective as one of the more infamous trades in sports history.
"I've got no regrets over it," Lynn said by phone this week from the Oxford Club, a private club he has owned the past 10 years in Oxford, Miss. "I did what I thought was the right thing at the time."
The trade ultimately involved 18 players and draft picks, still the largest in NFL history. The Vikings surrendered five players, three of them defensive starters, and eight draft picks, including three in the first round, three in the second and one in the third.
The Cowboys eventually packaged those picks for more picks or higher ones while selecting players such as NFL career rushing leader Emmitt Smith, defensive tackle and No. 1 overall pick Russell Maryland, safety Darren Woodson, cornerback Kevin Smith, receiver Alvin Harper and linebacker Dixon Edwards. They went from 1-15 in 1989 to winning Super Bowls after the 1992, 1993 and 1995 seasons.
Meanwhile, the Vikings went 21-23 with Walker before releasing him in May 1992. Their only playoff appearance was a 41-13 loss at San Francisco in the divisional round in 1989.
"You can't blame Herschel," said former Vikings receiver Anthony Carter. "The ball was in Mike Lynn's hands, and it was one of the horrible trades in sports history. All the blame for that goes on one individual, and that's Mike Lynn. Sorry to say that, but it's the honest to God truth."
Lynn said this week that he "still hasn't figured out" how and why the Walker trade went so awry.
"It's been a mystery to me all along what happened," he said. "All that we lacked on that team was a big back. Herschel was the best big back in the league. He gained 1,500 yards the previous year. He was in marvelous shape when he got here. It would have worked out."
Lynn points to Walker's debut as the example of what he thought he was getting in the deal. In a 26-14 victory over the Packers at the Metrodome, Walker ran for 148 yards on 18 carries. On his first touch from scrimmage, he literally ran out of his shoe while gaining 47 yards.
"Everybody sure thought it was a great trade that day," Lynn said. "But something happened. I don't know what it was, but whatever he had, he didn't have it any longer. It was like a great horse not having it. Just gone overnight or in a week."
Throw out his rushing debut with the Vikings, and Walker averaged 49.9 yards rushing per game in 43 appearances with the Vikings. That includes 29 yards in the playoff loss to the 49ers in 1989.
Players who were on that team say they admired Walker's work ethic and team-first attitude. They also say that his running style simply didn't fit the offense under coach Jerry Burns and offensive coordinator Bob Schnelker.
Walker was a Heisman Trophy winner at Georgia, a star in the USFL and a Pro Bowl player who had a combined 2,019 yards rushing and receiving with the Cowboys in 1988. All of his success came as a classic I-formation tailback who lined up 8 yards deep with a fullback in front of him.
"That was a problem when he got here," Hall of Fame guard Randall McDaniel said. "We ran traps and counters all the time. We were a split-back formation, which is a totally different setup. We asked Herschel to move closer to the line, split the backfield and do things he just wasn't used to doing."
Walker never rushed for 1,000 yards in a season with the Vikings. After being released, he ran for 1,070 yards with the Eagles in 1992.
"It was not for a lack of trying in Minnesota," Burns said last week. "He used to come into my office and tell me he'd do anything, even cover kicks and punts if that's what could help us win."
Over the course of his 12-year NFL career, Walker's 18,168 combined net yards were the second highest in NFL history when he left the game. Ironically, he retired as a Cowboy after playing the 1996 and 1997 seasons in Dallas. He could not be reached for this story.
Walker's ineffectiveness in Minnesota was only half the problem with the trade in 1989. The Vikings also gave up starting cornerback Issiac Holt, starting linebackers Jesse Solomon and David Howard, 1988 leading rusher Darrin Nelson and backup defensive end Alex Stewart.
And this was no slouch team. It was two years removed from playing in the NFC Championship Game, where it lost, 17-10, to a Commanders team that went on to win the Super Bowl. In 1988, the Vikings had seven Pro Bowl players, went 11-5, beat the Rams at home in a wild-card playoff game and lost, 34-9, at San Francisco in the divisional round.
At the time of the trade, the Vikings were 3-2. The Cowboys were 0-5. Some Vikings' players say they didn't learn about the trade until reporters called asking for a reaction. Others say they found out in the team meeting room that morning.
"We were just sitting there in the meeting room when they started calling out players who were in the trade," Carter said. "It was devastating. We lost a lot of good football players that morning."
The number of picks surrendered is the part of the trade that is remembered most. What's sometimes forgotten is five of the picks -- two in the first round, two in the second and one in the third -- were conditional. In the agreement, the Cowboys were allowed to use the players for the 1989 season and then choose to keep them or take the picks after the season.
"I thought of the players that we sent them, they would keep a number of those players," Lynn said this week. "So I thought the number of draft choices would not be as great as it was."
Lynn, however, was outmaneuvered by Jimmy Johnson, the Cowboys' rookie NFL coach and the mastermind of the Walker trade. Johnson had a generous offer from the Browns in hand but used it to pressure Lynn into offering him an even sweeter deal before a 6:30 p.m. deadline on Oct. 11, 1989.
Johnson, now a studio analyst for Fox, said this week he never had any intention of keeping the players.
"When we made the trade, Darrin Nelson didn't show up," Johnson said. "Didn't want to play on a bad team or whatever. I didn't care. I wasn't going to keep him anyway. I wanted those [conditional] picks. He didn't like the trade, so I said, 'Fine, hit the road.' "
Nelson was dealt to the Chargers. He eventually returned to the Vikings.
As for the four players who did report to Dallas, Johnson would not allow his assistants to start any of them even though, as Johnson said, "They were the best players we had."
"I knew if we started them, the coaches would like them and try to talk me into keeping them," Johnson said. "And then the fans would say, 'Why is this guy releasing our best players?' "
Johnson also had it in his mind all along that he would find a way to keep the conditional picks and some of the players. Maybe that's why at the news conference to announce the trade in Dallas, Johnson called it "the great train robbery."
After the 1989 season, Jones called Lynn to tell him he liked the players but was still going to cut them all.
"If I cut the players at that point, Mike got nothing," Johnson said. "He had no choice but to make another trade."
Lynn hung up before Johnson could make him an offer in which the Cowboys would keep the picks and the players while the Vikings got something in return.
Johnson said he had to get the league office to intervene since Lynn wouldn't talk to him. In February 1990, Johnson traded a third- and a 10th-round pick in 1990 and a third-round pick in 1991 to the Vikings so that he could keep the players and the picks.
The last of the former Vikings that Johnson kept were gone by the 1993 season. As for the Vikings, well, they were at least able to use the third-round pick in 1991 to select receiver Jake Reed.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who bought the team before the 1989 season, last month called the trade "the single most important decision in the Cowboys winning those three Super Bowls." He cited the point system for draft picks that Johnson popularized throughout the NFL.
"Based on the value of our picks and the value of Minnesota's picks, it was off the chart," Jones said. "If you added up the value for those three years [1990-92], we had more points in those three years than we had in our next 10 drafts combined."
Johnson says it's an oversimplification to say the Walker trade led directly to the Cowboys winning three Super Bowls.
"In my five years in Dallas, I made 51 trades," Johnson said. "That's more than the rest of the league made combined. You can't really trace that trade because of all the other trades that came after it. It's like the branches of a tree."
Lynn said the criticism he's gotten over the years hasn't bothered him.
"That's because I don't hear it," said Lynn, who lost his job running the day-to-day operations of the Vikings when Roger Headrick assumed control as president and CEO on Jan. 1, 1991. "I'm living here in Mississippi. About the only thing they care about here at the club is Ole Miss.
"And, looking back on it, it's like the Vikings this year. What's the only thing they needed? They needed a quarterback. They did whatever it took to get a quarterback. I felt the same way 20 years ago about a big back."
Obviously, the biggest difference between Favre and Walker is Favre only cost the Vikings money out of owner Zygi Wilf's pocket.
"When you give up all the players and the draft choices we gave them, I think [Lynn] built the Cowboys' dynasty for the '90s," former safety Joey Browner said. "I can't help but think those were Super Bowls that possibly could have been won here in Minnesota."
