NFL ROUNDUP : Pelluer to Chiefs; Colts Get Banks

The Dallas Cowboys continued their trading spree and the San Diego Chargers made a couple of deals before Tuesday’s National Football League trading deadline.

The Cowboys, who last week traded running back Herschel Walker to Minnesota in a 12-for-1 swap, traded holdout quarterback Steve Pelluer to the Kansas City Chiefs for a high draft choice in 1990 and 1991.

Dallas also obtained and traded a running back, with the Cowboys getting Paul Palmer from the Detroit Lions for a 10th-round draft choice and then dealt running back Darrin Nelson, obtained in the Walker trade, to San Diego for a middle-round pick.

The Chargers’ other deal involved drug-troubled linebacker Chip Banks, who was traded to the Indianapolis Colts for unspecified conditional draft picks.

Banks, who recently completed a 90-day drug rehabilitation program, played for San Diego in 1987 after being acquired in a draft-day deal that year from the Cleveland Browns, with whom he was an all-pro in four of five seasons.

He sat out the 1988 season after rejecting a five-year, $4.7-million contract.

Between February 1988 and June of this year, he was arrested four times in his native Atlanta on cocaine and marijuana possession charges. He also was arrested on a sexual abuse allegation but charges were never brought in that case.

According to Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations for the Chargers, the team felt it was in Banks’ best interest to continue his after-care recovery program in San Diego and sit out the remainder of this season. Ortmayer said that Spanos offered to pay for Banks after-care and then allow him to return to the team in 1990.

“We gave Chip every chance and every consideration to be a Charger in the future, starting next year,” Ortmayer said. “We did not think it was in his best interest to play in 1989. There were some questions we had in our mind relative to jumping back into the midst of a season in a stressful situation. He wanted to play very badly in 1989 and that opportunity will come to him from the Indianapolis Colts.”

Banks signed a one-year contract with the Chargers before the trade could be made. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Nelson had refused to report to the Cowboys. Ortmayer said he spoke with Nelson’s representatives and received assurances Nelson would come to San Diego.

“We expect him to be in the lineup Sunday,” Ortmayer said.