We had three incredible strokes of luck:
1. Jerry knew and played with Jimmy at Arkansas.
2. The #1 pick and a franchise QB just happened to be waiting for them.
3. Minny's foolishness in the Herschel Walker trade.
Eliminate any of the above and our championship drought since '77 would probably still be intact.
Minny made a stupid trade, but so did the Colts for Eric Dickerson along with countless others.
It still comes down to what you do with the picks. The Rams didnt do jack shit with theirs.
And Jimmy played that deal exactly right too, extracting every ounce he could from an arrogant Vikings front office that truly believed they were Herschel Walker away from championship teams.
#2 wouldn't have happened had a huge stroke of luck not happened in the 88 season's final week, with a heavily favored Cardinal team losing at home to the lowly Packers. I think Aikman was even in the stands for that game IIRC. Green Bay was actually 2-12 with two games to go and somehow won BOTH games, and for their stupidity ended up with Tony Mandarich.