October of 1989 was a tough time to be a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. The Pokes were in the middle of what would turn out to be a 1-15 season. The previous February some slick talking country bumpkin from Arkansas had bought the team, fired Tom Landry, and replaced him with a college coach.

Then owner Jerry Jones and his head coach Jimmy Johnson announced they were trading the team's only legitimate star, RB Herschel Walker, to the Minnesota Vikings. Not only did the Cowboys give up Walker, they also sent four draft picks to the Vikings. (a pair of third round picks, plus a fifth and a tenth)

In return, Dallas got 5 roster players (LB Jesse Solomon, DB Issiac Holt, RB Darrin Nelson, LB David Howard, DE Alex Stewart), and 6 assorted draft picks (conditional first and second round picks in 1990 and 1991 and a first round and conditional third in 1992).

Johnson and Jones vilified in the media, and it was widely assumed Minnesota GM Mike Lynn had pulled the wool over the eyes of the neophytes down in Dallas.

How wrong we were.

 "The Trade", as it is commonly referred to, became the foundation upon which the Cowboy's dynasty of the 1990's was built. The freewheeling Johnson parlayed those picks into Emmit Smith, Russell Maryland, Kevin Smith, Darren Woodson and Clayton Holmes.

If you are keeping score at home, as a result of this trade Dallas got the NFL's all time leading rusher (E. Smith), three pro-bowlers (E. Smith, Maryland and Woodson) and two very good role players (K.Smith, Holmes). Minnesota never figured out how to properly utilize Walker and eventually released him. In an ironic twist of fate, he ended up back in Dallas after a stop in Philadelphia.

The trade was selected by SI.com as the number one worst sports trade of all time. Several years after the fact, once all the picks had been made, Johnson was quoted as saying, "That was a train robbery."

For his part, Walker had this to say about the deal in a 2008 interview with Ability Magazine, "I could have gone against "the trade," but I knew Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys, was a very good businessperson. I think I was thrown into a situation where I never could have known the outcome. But the people of Minnesota loved me no matter what. They accepted me. When I was leaving the game, I made a statement that I would go back and play in Minnesota if only to give the people an opportunity to see what I could really do, because I think they deserved that. The people make NFL football. So I felt I owed them something. It had nothing to do with the team itself, because the team got what they wanted from me. Whatever the coaches asked me to do, I did. But the fans in Minnesota deserved more."

However, you can't really talk about "The Trade" without first talking about another date: April 30, 1985, the day of the 1985 NFL draft.

Walker was under contract to the USFL's New Jersey Generals at the time and Dallas GM Tex Schramm, suspecting the USFL was not going to last, acquired Walker's NFL rights by selecting him in the fifth round of the 1985 draft. When that league folded in 1986, he joined the Cowboys and established himself as a premier NFL running back with two consecutive Pro-Bowl seasons in 1987-88.

So while Johnson gets the credit for engineering "The Trade", it was Schramm who made it all possible by sneaking one by the rest of the league four years earlier.