Throwback Thursday: Looking Back At A Wild Trade.

In Indianapolis they call it the Eric Dickerson trade. In Buffalo they call it the Cornelius Bennett. Nearly everybody else agrees with the Indianapolis side. So much so that many people forget that Bennett was part of the trade. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that this was a wild trade that went down on Halloween Night in 1987. It involved three teams: the Los Angeles Rams, Indianapolis Colts, and Buffalo Bills. The Colts and Bills received impact football players. The Rams received a bunch of picks and a couple of players. It was an idea of 28-year old Colts general manager Jim Irsay. Here's how this wild trade went down:

Rams traded:
Eric Dickerson, RB

Rams received:
Owen Gill, RB
Greg Bell, RB
Buffalo 1988 #1
Indianapolis 1988 #1
Indianapolis 1988 #2
Buffalo 1989 #1
Indianapolis 1989 #2
Buffalo 1989 #2

Colts traded:
Owen Gill, RB
Rights to Cornelius Bennett, LB
1988 #1
1988 #2
1989 #2

Colts received:
Eric Dickerson, RB

Bills traded:
Greg Bell, RB
1988 #1
1989 #1
1989 #2

Bills received:
Right to Cornelius Bennett, LB

This trade was nuts. A lot of picks. 3 #1s, 3 #2s. Two impact football players in Eric Dickerson and Cornelius Bennett. Dickerson was already the best running back in the league. Bennett had yet to take an NFL snap but he was about to become one of the best linebackers in the league as soon as he did. It's really no surprise that Irsay went looking for a third team to make this trade work. He couldn't cough up enough picks to make the Rams happy. He decided to turn Bennett, a that he couldn't sign, into the picks that he needed. The Bills were on the verge of becoming a dominant team and a player like Bennett could put them over the hump.

History shows us that all three teams benefited from this trade. The Bills saw the most team success. Bennett helped lead them to four straight Super Bowl appearances. Dickerson had a couple of great seasons with the Colts but team success wasn't so great. Their only playoff appearance was the year that he joined them. The Rams drafted some solid players with their bushel of picks (Gaston Green, Aaron Cox, Fred Strickland, Cleveland Gary, Frank Stams, Darryl Henley) but none propelled the franchise to new heights.

In his recent book, Bill Polian mentioned that the Minnesota Vikings tried to get involved in this trade. Vikings GM Mike Lynn told Polian after the fact that he had gone to the movies and was never able to make his best offer. Pity the years before cell phones. Polian found out later that the Vikings failure to get involved in this deal was the impetus for the Herschel Walker trade made two years later. It was certainly the blueprint for what it takes to obtain a dominant running back. Too much. Both trades moved a package that included three #1s and  three #2s. And so much more. The entire trade was too much.

Trades like this are simply too wild to be real but they do happen. Not often. But they do happen.