Souhan: Walker deal still trade of all trades 25 years later

Twenty-five years ago Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys dealt Herschel Walker to the Vikings in the largest and most lopsided trade in NFL history.

In 1989, I covered the Cowboys for the Dallas Morning News and watched coach and de facto general manager Jimmy Johnson make a desperate play to revive a franchise that had hit bottom.

From 1990 through 1992, and for spells thereafter, I covered the Vikings for the Star Tribune, and watched the trade disassemble one of the most respected franchises in the league.

For a young reporter, it was like getting to cover the Cold War from both sides of the Berlin Wall.

You know by now that Johnson fleeced Vikings GM Mike Lynn, that Walker didn't fit into the offense run by coach Jerry Burns, and that the Vikings gave up eight draft picks and five players to land Walker.

What I'll offer are some memories that might not make it into the national documentaries and retrospectives.

In 1989, the NFL felt much more like a mom-and-pop corner grocery than the elaborately choreographed multibillion-dollar business it has become.

I had covered high school sports in Dallas, and transitioning to the Cowboys' Valley Ranch facility wasn't difficult. It was often easier to line up an interview with Johnson or owner Jerry Jones than a famous high school coach.

All you had to do was walk through the locker room (when it wasn't occupied), past the racquetball courts and into the executive wing. You'd ask the secretary if Jerry or Jimmy was free. If one of them was, he'd usually call you in.

The Vikings' Winter Park facility operated in much the same manner. You could walk down the hallway and ask a secretary to speak with Burns or Lynn. Sometimes I'd sit in a coach's office as he broke down film. Sometimes, coaches told me the game plan, swearing me to secrecy.

One early evening Lynn kept trying to kick me out of his office, but I could tell he was hiding something, so I waited in the team's lobby. Eventually, he told me, "All right, all right, you wore me down, I'll give you the story."

The story: The Vikings had signed holdout running back D.J. Dozier, a former first-round draft pick whose ineffectiveness indirectly led to Lynn trading for Walker.

Johnson traded Walker on a Thursday. I covered the Cowboys with veteran reporter Tim Cowlishaw, now of ESPN's "Around The Horn" fame, who went on a local TV station that night and questioned Johnson's sanity.

The next day, Tim and I were walking down one of Valley Ranch's many mazelike corridors when Johnson stopped us. "You guys don't get it, do you?" he said.

Angry, Johnson pulled us into a public relations workroom filled with copying machines and detailed the plan that Lynn never suspected. Lynn knew the Cowboys lacked talent. He structured the trade so that certain players were tied to certain draft picks.

Lynn figured that Johnson, desperate to win right away, would choose useful players like Ike Holt and Jesse Solomon over draft picks that would take time to develop. "What Mike doesn't know is that I'm keeping all of the picks," Johnson said that day.

Johnson had a habit of pursing and licking his lips when agitated, and he was pursing like crazy. "We weren't going to win with Herschel," Johnson said. "Those picks give us a chance."

While that Cowboys team was finishing 1-15, the Vikings were going 10-6 and making the playoffs.

Walker made his Vikings debut that Sunday, throwing his shoe on a spectacular run. Within a few weeks, Walker, a power back who lacked quickness and agility, was straining to adapt to Burns' quick-hitting, quick-passing offense.

Walker would play almost three seasons with the Vikings, never topping 825 yards rushing. A genial but odd character who often referred to himself in the third person, he would eventually question his role. While the Cowboys surged into contention and won three Super Bowls, Lynn resigned following the 1990 season to run the ill-fated WLAF football league. Burns retired after the 1991 season.

Before the Walker deal, Lynn would turn interviews into poker games. He would puff on a cigarette and stare out his window at the Vikings' practice fields. Pressed on a topic, he'd respond with a cackle, a plume of smoke and his trademark quote, "It's tough in the arena."

By the end of the season, when asked about the Walker deal, Lynn was no longer posturing. "Ah," he'd say, shoulders slumping. "Do we really have to go through that again?"

Burns often praised Walker, but in unguarded moments, he would admit that Walker didn't fit into his offense, raising questions about whether Lynn had properly researched Walker's ability to play in Burns' scheme.

In the end, the trade exposed Walker, once considered superhuman, as a limited player. It sent the Cowboys toward those three titles. It shredded the Vikings braintrust.

I was happy to see Johnson succeed. I always found him entertaining.

I was saddened to see Lynn and Burns suffer.

Herschel. Jimmy. Remarkable Mike. Burnsie. The NFL won't see four characters like that thrown together again unless Dan Jenkins decides to write a novel while under the influence, or Elmore Leonard comes back to life.

Jim Souhan can be heard weekdays at noon and Sundays from 10 to noon on 1500 ESPN. • @SouhanStrib • jsouhan@startribune.com