I don't know if this trade will ever happen but IMO, you have to look at risk reward here. It's interesting because this is exactly what Jerry was trying to do when he traded for Rocket Ismail. Jerry invisioned Irvin on one side, dominating coverage, forcing single coverage against Rocket. With Ismail's speed, that offense could have been truely imposing. Unfortunatly, as we all know, Irvin went down, Rocket was forced into being the primary WR and the vision of Irvin and Ismail, on the same field was never realized. The difference between this situation and that is that we are a young team starting to come into our own and that was an old team on it's last downs, talent wise. I would also say that Smith is probably a better WR then Ismail was but that's another discussion. Essentially, the risk/reward scenario for a trade such as this is much better then in the late 90s, IMO. TO could go down but we are much better suited to deal with that injury if we have another quality WR like say a Steve Smith on the team. Back then, we were gambling everything on Ismail and the injury situation with Irvin and Aikman kinda forced us into a bad situation. Rocket did enjoy the best year of his career in 99, which gave fuel to the trade for Galloway the next season but unfortunatly, Rocket was injured in 2000, his production way down and Glenn, well, we traded hugh picks that really could have helped this team only to lose him for the season in the 1st game. The 2001 season, both Rocket and Ismail were healthy but we lost Troy so we never really enjoyed the opportunity to see how that whole scenario could have turned out.
This, to me, is different. I don't know what it would take to get a guy like Smith but I would have to consider a trade like this very seriously. This, to me, is one of those opportunites that you have to go out and take by the throat if you are serious about winning a championship. Obviously, we can't trade at any cost but we can trade some very valuable picks and a decent package of players for this consideration. To me, this is the missing piece. It's the right time in the maturation process of the team and it is a move that could be the difference between winning a champoinship and losing one. If we had a player like Smith last year, we would have beaten NY. No way NY sends the Blitz against us like they did the entire second half and covers a guy like Smith. We would have scored and scored often on that defense if we would have had Smith. Either that, or we would have continued to pound the ball with Barber and run the clock out while still scoring points. Slow death, if you will. I just can not emphysis how important speed opposit TO is. I know that lots of people like Crayton and I do too. He is a good player and will get better but he is not the speed that can make defenses play honest against us. If he were, none of the teams we played, down the stretch, would have played us as they did. We need a speed guy for our offense and Smith is that kind of player.
Trade may never happen but this is the kind of thing we definatly need to add if we want to be a dominating team IMO.
