Halloween of 1987 fell on a Saturday, and that day Los Angeles shipped Eric Dickerson, the most productive running back in football, from the Rams to Indianapolis, with Buffalo joining as the third club. When the paperwork was done, ten players and draft choices had changed hands, one of the largest trades the NFL had ever seen.
Dickerson was 27 and already owned the single-season rushing record, the 2,105 yards he ran for in 1984. He had also been fighting the Rams over his contract since 1985. The 1987 season had been cut short by a players’ strike, and he had played only three games for Los Angeles before the club decided to move him rather than keep negotiating.
How the pieces fit
The deal worked because each club had something another wanted. Indianapolis held the rights to linebacker Cornelius Bennett, the No. 2 pick in the 1987 draft out of Alabama, but had failed to sign him. Buffalo wanted Bennett badly enough to pay for him. The Rams wanted volume.
- Colts received: Eric Dickerson.
- Bills received: the rights to Cornelius Bennett.
- Rams received: running backs Greg Bell (from Buffalo) and Owen Gill (from Indianapolis), plus six picks: Buffalo’s first-rounders in 1988 and 1989 and its 1989 second-rounder, and Indianapolis’s first- and second-rounders in 1988 and its 1989 second-rounder.
Los Angeles turned those six choices into running back Gaston Green (14th overall in 1988), wide receiver Aaron Cox (20th in 1988), linebacker Fred Strickland (47th in 1988), running back Cleveland Gary (26th in 1989), linebacker Frank Stams (45th in 1989) and defensive back Darryl Henley (53rd in 1989). None of them became a star, though Gary and Henley gave the Rams several useful seasons.
An instant lift in Indianapolis
The Colts had not finished above .500 since 1977, their last years in Baltimore. Dickerson changed that almost at once. He ran for 1,011 yards in nine games with his new team, giving him 1,288 for the season, and Indianapolis finished 9-6 to win the AFC East. Its first playoff trip in a decade ended with a 38-21 divisional-round loss in Cleveland.
In 1988 Dickerson led the league with 1,659 rushing yards, but the Colts slipped to 9-7 and missed the postseason. The partnership soured from there. More contract disputes, suspensions and injuries marked his last two years in Indianapolis, and the 1991 team went 1-15. On April 26, 1992, the Colts sent him to the Los Angeles Raiders for fourth- and eighth-round picks. Dickerson has since called the move to Indianapolis the low point of his career.
Buffalo’s piece aged best
With hindsight, the Bills got the most lasting return. Bennett signed and became a fixture at outside linebacker, earning five Pro Bowl selections in Buffalo (1988 and 1990 through 1993) and starting on the teams that reached four straight Super Bowls, all of them losses. The Colts, who gave him up along with three picks, got roughly two and a half strong seasons from Dickerson.
Dickerson retired during the 1993 season with 13,259 rushing yards, second in league history at the time, and was voted into Canton in 1999, the first year he was eligible. Thirty-nine years later, his 2,105-yard season still stands as the record, and the Halloween deal that sent him east is still the measuring stick for midseason blockbusters. Two years later, the October 1989 Herschel Walker deal between Dallas and Minnesota would dwarf it in size, but few deals have reshaped three franchises at once the way this one did.
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