Herschel and the Vikings- what exactly went wrong?

[CSKreager]

We all know the gist- Vikings traded way too much for Herschel, didn't work out, Cowboys became a dynasty.

But more specifically- WHY did it go wrong? The Vikings had more success in 1987-1988 with relatively less-than-awesome running games.

Was it NFC depth/strength? Quarterbacking woes? Misused? Too much inside game?

If anything, it's worth noting that the Eagles in 1992 did a much MUCH better job of utilizing Herschel for whatever reason than the Vikes did. The Herschel you saw that year seemed to be exactly what the Vikings were trying to do.

[Ronfitch]

Walker was a wonderful North-South runner whose success was as an I formation tailback.

The Vikings ran a split backfield, moved Walker closer to the line in putting him into this formation and ran a lot of traps and counters. The issue was Mike Lynn traded for arguably the best back in the league but he was not suited to the Vikings' scheme at the time.

A bit like what happened to John Brockington in Green Bay. He was a big, strong N-S runner who was the first RB in the league to rush for 1,000 yards in each of his first three seasons ('71-'73, plus 800+ in '74). A new offensive scheme changed from a N-S running game to more "run to daylight" plays with the runner running parallel to the line and picking a hole, which Brock simply was not good at. Add the loss of Mac Lane as a blocker and Brockington's game dropped off considerably.

[John Maxymuk]

Similar to Demarco Murray under Kelly in Philly.

[JohnTurney]

Walker was a wonderful North-South runner whose success was as an I formation tailback.

The Vikings ran a split backfield, moved Walker closer to the line in putting him into this formation and ran a lot of traps and counters. The issue was Mike Lynn traded for arguably the best back in the league but he was not suited to the Vikings' scheme at the time.

Vikes even tried to use the "I" after weeks of problems, but it was never quite right in Minny for him

[Gary Najman]

Something that I remember well is that Walker as a receiver with the Vikings was a non-factor, while he did made big receiving plays/games while with the Cowboys. Checking in Pro Football Reference, Walker had 33 games with 50 or more receiving yards in his NFL career, and only two of those were with Minnesota (but 9 of those games were with the Eagles, when Walker had left the Vikings).

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

Something that I remember well is that Walker as a receiver with the Vikings was a non-factor, while he did made big receiving plays/games while with the Cowboys. Checking in Pro Football Reference, Walker had 33 games with 50 or more receiving yards in his NFL career, and only two of those were with Minnesota (but 9 of those games were with the Eagles, when Walker had left the Vikings).

Herschel's receiving stats make for a really good shorthand measurement of how good his team's receivers were. With the Cowboys, his team's receiving corps was terrible every year, and Herschel caught 200+ passes in 49 games. With the Vikings, he had the best receivers he ever played with, AC, Hassan Jones and Steve Jordan, so his catches per game number was the lowest of his career. His first year in Philly he had Fred Barnett at his peak, Calvin Williams, and Keith Byars, and Herschel's reception total was about the same as in Minnesota. The next year, Barnett got hurt, Byars was gone, and Herschel caught 75 passes. Barnett returned the next year and Herschel dropped down to 50 receptions.

[BD Sullivan]

For information purposes, here are the main Dallas WR's from 1986-89:

1986: Tony Hill, Mike Sherrard, Doug Cosbie, Mike Renfro--all but Sherrard were 30 or over.
1987: Mike Renfro, Kelvin Edwards, Doug Cosbie
1988: Ray Alexander, Kelvin Martin, ROOKIE Michael Irvin, Thornton Chandler
1989: Kelvin Martin, Steve Folsom, Michael Irvin, James Dixon, Derrick Shepard

[Jeremy Crowhurst]

For information purposes, here are the main Dallas WR's from 1986-89:

1986: Tony Hill, Mike Sherrard, Doug Cosbie, Mike Renfro--all but Sherrard were 30 or over.
1987: Mike Renfro, Kelvin Edwards, Doug Cosbie
1988: Ray Alexander, Kelvin Martin, ROOKIE Michael Irvin, Thornton Chandler
1989: Kelvin Martin, Steve Folsom, Michael Irvin, James Dixon, Derrick Shepard

Yeah, 1986 looks like a real surprise in terms of expectations - Renfro, Hill, and Cosbie were all coming off of career-best seasons, but all had big declines in 1986. Hill was done at that point, and the other two were out of the league within a couple of years.

[Evan]

These are my opinions the subject, as an excerpt of a very long document I wrote about Vikings history some years ago:

While the Herschel Walker trade is looked upon as the steal of the century for Dallas, that’s really mostly due to the Cowboys’ excellent use of the draft picks the Vikings gave up. At the time of the trade (1989 week 6) it did appear that the supremely talented Vikings were just a franchise back away from dominating the NFL, as it hadn’t been quite established yet that the 49ers were as infallible as they turned out to be in 1989. The 49ers were 4-1 at the time, but had won by 6, 4, 10 and 4 points. It was only after the Vikings acquired Walker that the 49ers went off, as their last 10 wins in 1989 were by an average of 17 points.

Indeed, before 1989's Week 6, it seemed as though the Vikings could be counted on for a Super Bowl run with Walker, and giving up what would presumedly be some low first-round draft picks (possibly the last pick in the first round if they won the Super Bowl) and other picks would be well worth it for a franchise that had never given its fans the ultimate NFL prize.

But in hindsight that was simply not going to happen. There were way too many chemistry problems plaguing that Vikings team (which is curious considering that Jerry Burns was a disciple of Vince Lombardi, so you wouldn’t figure he would be as tolerant of such crap), and bringing in a messiah running back just added to the madness.

In addition, the Vikings had been used to running several different RBs 6-10 times a game, and I don't think had the patience to let Herschel get 25 carries hoping for something good. I also don't know that they had the right offensive linemen in place for an emphasis on the running game.

The Vikings also really needed consistency at QB, something that Tommy Kramer and Wade Wilson never quite sorted out. After Kramer’s Pro Bowl year of 1986, he missed training camp while spending time in alcohol rehab, and soon suffered neck and arm injuries that rendered him something less than a complete quarterback. Kramer is really one of the more tragic figures in Vikings history. As a rookie in 1977, he leads the team to a rousing comeback win over San Francisco to light huge hope for his future, then two years later has to replace Sir Francis while playing behind a line that is too young and small to afford him much protection. Kramer was more limited athletically than his size would indicate, as he did not have either a particularly strong arm nor particularly quick feet. But he executed the West Coast offense with dink and dunk touch passes well enough to keep the Vikings above water for most years even as alcohol abuse and mounting injuries took their toll.

Wilson was in some ways the antithesis of Kramer. While Kramer preferred the perfect lob pass that landed soft as a pillow, Wilson was a victim of being too in love with his arm, often staring down a receiver and trying to force a ball into coverage by throwing a frozen rope. But his receivers (Carter, Jones, Lewis, Jordan) were good enough to often use their bodies to shield the defender from the ball, which led to lots of passing game success. Wilson also had much better running instincts and ability than Kramer, which helped the offense immensely. Coming off a Pro Bowl year in limited action in 1988, Wilson should have been ready for a 25 TD, 3,500-yard season in 1989, but it turned out that he just wasn’t that kind of quarterback. The Viking offense sputtered badly in three of their first four games in 1989 and never really got in sync with Walker when he arrived. Anthony Carter, Steve Jordan and Hassan Jones combined for just 8 TD receptions all year.

Herschel Walker came to the Vikings with tremendous credentials. He was the greatest college running back I’ve ever seen, and could have won three Heismans (he deserved it as a freshman but lost to George Rogers, won it as a junior, and likely would have won again had he returned for his senior year). He was coming off a 1,500-yard season in 1988, but his USFL and NFL mileage should have been a warning sign to the Vikings. However, it still seemed like he had enough left to be the final piece of the Super Bowl puzzle, and after that first electrifying, shoe-flying game in the dome against Green Bay, it seemed like the rest of the NFL should be running scared. Of course, we know it turned out differently.

The two things that I’ll always remember about Herschel as a Viking were his inordinately huge shoulder pads, which seemingly made him grabable by seven defensive players at once, and his pitty-pat steps, which were utterly maddening to watch.

But in some ways Herschel gets more blame than he deserves. The Vikings weren’t going to the Super Bowl without him. It’s just that since they didn’t go with him, everyone thinks he was the reason they fell short. The players the Vikings gave up were not key to either theirs or Dallas’s success, and if they kept the draft picks they gave to Dallas there’s no telling that they would have used them wisely anyway. They traded for the best available player at the position that they felt they needed most, and it just didn’t work out.

A usually forgotten footnote in all of this is the curious case of D.J. Dozier. A top college back at Penn State, Dozier slipped to the Vikings as a mid-first round pick in 1987, and showed flashes of becoming an excellent pro runner. Dozier scored seven touchdowns in limited action as a rookie, but then was hobbled by hip and knee injuries over the next two years while still flirting with a career in baseball. I don’t know if he just never recovered from injuries, or his heart wasn’t in it, but he could have been the guy to make the Vikings never have even needed Herschel. But as mentioned before, in 1988 and 1989 the 49ers weren’t going to be beaten by any football team anyway, no matter who the Vikings had at running back.

Why couldn't the Vikings regroup in 1990? Probably due to more quarterback woes, the injury to Keith Millard, and mileage adding up on Anthony Carter, Steve Jordan and other key performers as well as the shock that Herschel was just not working out.

One of the most often repeated falsehoods in sports is that the Cowboys drafted Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson with the Vikings’ draft picks. Untrue. The Cowboys traded all of the Vikings draft picks they received in the Walker trade, packaging them with picks of their own and picks they received from other teams in order to move around to draft Smith and Woodson. For the record, here are the exact picks the Vikings gave up for Walker, and who wound up using them, and for which players:

1990 1st round - No. 21 - TE Eric Green (Liberty) - Pittsburgh Steelers
1990 2nd round - No. 47 - DT Dennis Brown (Washington) - San Francisco 49ers
1991 1st round - No. 11 - T Pat Harlow (USC) - New England Patriots
1991 2nd round - No. 38 - DB Daryll Lewis (Arizona) - Houston Oilers
1992 1st round - No. 13 - T Eugene Chung (Virginia Tech) - New England Patriots
1992 2nd round - No. 40 - QB Matt Blundin (Virginia) - Kansas City Chiefs
1992 3rd round - No. 71 - RB Kevin Turner (Alabama) - New England Patriots

You’d think for all the bad publicity the Vikings got from the Walker trade, that all of those guys above would be in Canton by now. Not so. Basically the Vikings unloaded what became a bunch of unexciting draft slots to the Cowboys, who subsequently dumped them to other teams. Not that big a deal really.

Also for the record, here is how the Cowboys got significant pieces of their Super Bowl teams after the Walker trade:
1990 No. 17 - Emmitt Smith (from Pittsburgh); No. 64 DT Jimmie Jones (from New England)
1991 No. 1 DT Russell Maryland (from New England); No. 12 WR Alvin Harper (Dallas’ pick); No. 37 LB Dixon Edwards (from Detroit); No. 70 T Erik Williams (from New Orleans); No.173 DT Leon Lett (from Denver), No. 320 DB Larry Brown (Dallas’ pick).
1992 No. 17 DB Kevin Smith (from Philadelphia); No. 37 DB Darren Woodson (from New England).

Dallas obviously drafted well and should be hugely commended for that, but they picked up as much steam from picks from New England and Pittsburgh as they did from Minnesota. And as a matter of fact, the Cowboys could have made a huge draft blunder, as their supplemental pick of QB Steve Walsh in 1989 compromised their first-round 1990 draft pick, a pick that turned out to be the overall No. 1 pick after Dallas’s 1-15 1989 season. So the Cowboys could have picked No. 1 overall in 1990, but had no first-round pick of their own because they went for Walsh, even after they already had Aikman. Jeff George, by the way, turned out to be the No. 1 pick in the 1990 draft, so no one has lampooned the Cowboys for the way that turned out.

[7DnBrnc53]

Just found this online. This person makes a lot of sense:

http://www.jeffpearlman.com/a-herschel- ... -theorist/