Over the weekend, coach Bill O’Brien, who calls the personnel shots for the Houston Texans, made a pair of major trades. How both deals work out will have major implications on O’Brien’s long-term job security.
He took a huge gamble by giving up three premium draft picks and two players to pry left tackle Laremy Tunsil and wide receiver Kenny Stills from the Miami Dolphins. That’s a pretty steep price and the loss of those draft picks could hurt Houston in the future. It’s too early to declare a winner in this trade. If Tunsil and Stills play well and Houston makes a deep playoff run, this will look like a great trade. Anything less and if those future draft picks don’t work out, the Texans will be the losers in this deal.
O’Brien’s other move was trading defensive lineman Jadaveon Clowney, perhaps Houston’s best player, to the Seattle Seahawks for a 2020 third-round pick and backup linebackers Barkevious Mingo and Jacob Martin. That’s a very small return for a player of Clowney’s caliber, so this one is already looking like a bad move by Houston. But it’s too early for a final verdict on either deal.
What is for sure is that there have been plenty of terrible trades in NFL history. Let’s take a look at the 11 worst trades ever.
11. Patriots could have had Jerry Rice
You really can’t question many personnel moves New England has made in the Bill Belichick era. But you definitely can question one move the Patriots made long before the coach arrived. That was in 1985, when the Patriots were poised to take Rice, the greatest wide receiver ever. Instead, the Patriots traded out of the No. 16 position. They sent that pick and No. 75 to San Francisco in exchange for Nos. 28, 56 and 84. New England wound up using those three picks on Trevor Matich, Ben Thomas and Audray McMillan. Had the Patriots taken Rice, their current dynasty could have started long before it did.
10. Oilers gave Steve Largent to Seattle for almost nothing
The Oilers drafted Largent in the fourth round in 1976. But they weren’t at all impressed by what they saw in training camp and the preseason. Houston was prepared to cut Largent but shopped him around the league first. The best they could get was an eighth-round pick, so the Oilers grabbed the deal while they could. Largent turned out to be perhaps the best player in Seattle history. He made 819 career catches and earned a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
9. The Packers freaked out
Green Bay had high hopes entering the 1974 season. But the Packers went 3-3 with Jerry Tagge as their starting quarterback. The Packers then panicked. John Hadl had been a fantastic quarterback for the Chargers and Rams, but he was 34 and clearly on the downside of his career. But the Packers thought Hadl could solve all their problems. Green Bay sent the Rams two first-round picks, two second-round picks and a third-round choice to the Rams for Hadl. As a starter, he won only seven games over the rest of that year and the next.
8. The Bears went crazy over Rick Mirer
After four bad seasons in Seattle, which drafted the quarterback No. 2 in 1993, Mirer was already viewed as a bust. His record as a starter was 20-31 and nobody saw any upside – except for Chicago. The Bears sent a first-round pick in exchange for Mirer and a fourth-round pick. That turned out to be a huge mistake. Mirer only started three games for Chicago. By the way, the Seahawks turned that first-round pick into Shawn Springs, who turned out to be an All-Pro cornerback.
7. The Rams, for no apparent reason, gave up on Jerome Bettis
The Rams seemed to get it right when they used the No. 10 overall pick in 1993 on the Notre Dame running back. He won Offensive Rookie of the Year when he rushed for 1,429 yards. His next two years were solid. But the Rams then made one of the worst decisions in football history. In the 1996 draft, they used the No. 6 pick on running back Lawrence Phillips, who turned out to be one of the biggest draft busts ever. The Rams then planned to move Bettis to fullback.
But they soon gave up on that idea and traded Bettis and a third-round pick to Pittsburgh for a second- and fourth-round pick. Bettis was dominant with the Steelers, winning a Super Bowl and a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
6. The Saints gave up the farm for Ricky Williams
After a great run as coach of the Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka wound up with the New Orleans Saints and things didn’t go nearly as well. In 1999, Ditka made a drastic move that would sully his reputation forever. Texas running back Ricky Williams looked like the best player in the draft and Ditka bought the hype. Ditka sent eight draft picks to the Washington Redskins for a chance to draft Williams. The Saints promptly went 3-13 and Ditka was fired.
Williams wasn’t terrible and eventually bounced around the NFL. But he wasn’t the second coming of Walter Payton, like Ditka thought.
5. Falcons traded Brett Favre to Green Bay
In 1991, the Falcons drafted Favre with the 33rd overall pick. But the Falcons immediately realized they had a problem on their hands. Despite his enormous talent, Favre was showing nothing in practice. Coach Jerry Glanville discovered it was because Favre was carousing too much at night. It got to the point where Glanville placed a security guard outside Favre’s hotel room on Saturday nights to prevent the quarterback from going out. It was so bad that Glanville could take only one year of Favre, after he attempted only four passes for Atlanta.
The Falcons decided to cut their losses and send Favre to Green Bay for the No. 19 overall draft pick, which Atlanta used on running back Tony Smith. Favre went to Green Bay, eventually got substance-abuse treatment and turned out to be one of the greatest quarterbacks in history.
4. The Chargers traded up to get Ryan Leaf
In 1998, there were two can’t-miss quarterbacks coming out, at least in terms of physical ability. They were Peyton Manning and Leaf. The Chargers felt comfortable with either one and that’s why they made a trade with the Arizona Cardinals to get the No. 2 pick. San Diego sent two first-round picks, a second-round choice, Eric Metcalf and Patrick Sapp to the Cardinals.
After exhaustive research, the Colts went with Manning at No. 1. We all know how that turned out. Manning became one of the NFL’s greatest quarterbacks. Despite his enormous talent, Leaf turned out to be a head case. He failed miserably in San Diego and is one of the biggest drop flops in history.
3. Buccaneers sent Steve Young to San Francisco
In the 1980s, Tampa Bay was as dysfunctional as any franchise in the history of sports. Owner Hugh Culverhouse was notoriously frugal. He wouldn’t even let his college scouts travel West of the Mississippi River. Culverhouse didn’t care about winning. He kept the payroll as low as possible and relied on television revenues to make millions.
The Bucs picked up Young as the United States Football League fell apart. Young spent two years with the Bucs, running for his life because the offensive line was so bad, and the team went 2-14 in each of those seasons. Young was traded to San Francisco in the 1987 offseason for a second- and fourth-round pick. With the 49ers, Young had time to recover from his Tampa Bay shellshock as he was Joe Montana’s backup. When Young finally got the chance to play in San Francisco, he embarked on a Hall-of-Fame career, made seven Pro Bowls, earned two Most Valuable Player awards and kept the 49ers’ dynasty going through the 1990s.
While unloading Young was Culverhouse’s worst trade, by far, let’s be clear on a few things. Young never would have succeeded in Tampa Bay because he had no chance on such a bad team. Also, while trading Young looks really bad, it wasn’t even Culverhouse’s biggest mistake. Letting Doug Williams walk to the USFL in a salary dispute and drafting Bo Jackson even though the running back made it clear he would never play for Tampa Bay were even bigger mistakes.
2. The Colts traded John Elway to the Broncos
Former Colts owner Robert Irsay left two horrible legacies in Baltimore. The worst was the image of the Mayflower trucks moving all of the Colts’ goods to Indianapolis in the middle of the night. That’s never been forgiven or forgotten in Baltimore. But Irsay’s other legacy is just as bad. In 1983, he drafted Elway, even though the quarterback and his father, Jack, had made it extremely clear there was no way Elway would ever play for the Colts. Elway had leverage, saying he could play baseball and join the New York Yankees’ system.
Irsay still drafted Elway No. 1 overall in 1983. But, after finally realizing Elway was serious, the Colts traded the quarterback to Denver for Chris Hinton, Mark Herrmann and a first-round draft pick. Elway went on to have a 16-year career in Denver, won two Super Bowls and made the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
This turned out to be the NFL equivalent of the Boston Red Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees.
1. Cowboys traded Herschel Walker to Vikings
This goes down as one of the most lopsided trades in the history of all of sports. The Cowboys clearly were the winners and the Vikings were the losers. Keep in mind that this was very early in the tenure of Dallas owner Jerry Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson. They were seeing eye to eye in those days. They realized that the dynasty former coach Tom Landry had was long gone and they had to start from scratch. Walker was their best player at the time, but the Cowboys were going nowhere. Walker was also their most marketable commodity and they needed more players
That’s why they shopped him and on October 12, 1989, they got an offer from Minnesota that could not be refused. Mike Lynn was in charge of Minnesota’s personnel department at the time. Lynn offered three draft picks and five active players (with the possibility of conditional draft picks tied to each of those five players). Jones has repeatedly been quoted as saying he rushed to accept the offer before Lynn could change his mind. The Cowboys kept wheeling and dealing. In the aftermath, they eventually parlayed the Walker deal into an overall king’s ransom of 18 players and draft picks.
They used all that currency to get players such as Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson and laid the foundation for three Super Bowl championships in the 1990s. On the flip side, Minnesota made the deal thinking Walker was the missing link to the Vikings winning multiple Super Bowls. Walker was a good player for Minnesota, but the Vikings never got to a Super Bowl. Johnson described the deal as “The Great Train Robbery’’. He was exactly right.
Pat Yasinskas has covered the NFL since 1993. He has worked for The Tampa Tribune, The Charlotte Observer and ESPN.com and writes for numerous national magazines and websites. He also has served as a voter for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
