NFL Trades

Growing up there were two monster historic NFL trades against which all others were judged; the 1990 trade of Hershel Walker from Dallas to Minnesota and the 1999 trade that allowed New Orleans to draft Ricky Williams. The number of draft picks in both trades seemed crazy at the time but now it seems NFL trades often include similar numbers of draft picks but aren't considered as historic at all.

Hershel Walker was traded to Minnesota for three 1st round picks, three 2nd round picks, plus a 3rd round pick and a 6th rounder. They gave up Herschel, two 3rd rounders and a 5th and a 10th. Dallas used that 1990 1st rounder to draft Emmitt Smith and to lay the groundwork for their championships of the 1990's (they already had Troy Aikman). New Orleans traded their entire draft from 1999 plus 2000 1st and 3rd rounders to Washington - all for the rights to draft Ricky Williams. In both cases the teams getting the draft picks were judged over time to have gotten the better ends of the deals.

Consider that in just 2021 Detroit traded Matthew Stafford to the Rams for Jared Goff  and two 1st round picks and a 3rd rounder. And San Fran traded three 1st rounders and a 3rd rounder for just the rights to draft QB Trey Lance.. In 2022 we've seen Russel Wilson (and a 4th rounder) traded from Seattle to Denver for three decent players plus two 1st rounders, two 2nd rounders, and a 5th. Then you had the Deshaun Watson trade from Houston to Cleveland for three 1st round picks, a 3rd and a 5th all for a player facing 22 sexual misconduct civil suits. Crazy.

For people brought up on the Hershel Walker and Ricky Williams trades (and the aftermaths of those trade) the recent complete disregard of 1st round picks seems crazy!

As an aside - Emmitt Smith ended up having more 1,000+ yard seasons (11) than Ricky Williams (5) and Hershel Walker (2) combined! Really surprised that Hershel only had 2 1,000-yards seasons in his NFL career.