The Dallas Cowboys just traded Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers—an outcome many thought was unfathomable. The return? First round picks in 2026 and 2027, and 29-year-old DT Kenny Clark. That’s it.
There’s no way to spin this. This is a terrible trade. Jerry Jones just punted on the most dynamic and disruptive defensive player in football. A player who’s a perennial All-Pro on a clear Hall of Fame trajectory. And gave him away to a conference rival that had Super Bowl aspirations before this trade.
Nobody outside of DFW will shed a tear for the fan base, but Dallas sports has now lost Luka Doncic and Micah Parsons in the span of eight months, all because of incompetent and ego-driven general management.
The Cowboys are peak theater, and our favorite reality show.
Let’s try to talk it out.
What Do We Make Of The Micah Parsons Trade?
Why Did Jerry Jones Do This?
That’s what every fan wants to know right now. Why do this trade, Jerry?
“We think it was in the best interest of our organization,” Jones said in a press conference a few hours after the trade was announced. “Not only [for] the future, but right now in this season, as well.”
Please. How is trading your best player for relative peanuts in the best interest of the organization?
“This was a move to get us successful in the playoffs,” he said. “This was a move to be better on defense, stopping the run…if we get behind, to not be run on. It was a deliberate move, a well-thought-out move to make this happen.”
What he’s talking about is the acquisition of DT Kenny Clark. A solid player who has three Pro Bowls on his resume—nothing to thumb your nose at. But Clark’s calling card has never been run-stopping. Overall, he was average, at best, in 2024, finishing with a PFF run defense grade of 57.1. That was good for 83rd among qualified defensive tackles. That’s the kind of player you get back if you’re trading Jalen Tolbert, not Micah Parsons.
Clark is a good football player, and he is going to catch a lot of unfair heat. But he’s just not the caliber of player that justifies trading away your best piece.
A defense that already had a lot of holes doesn’t get better in the short term by losing its best player. That pass rush depth? They were able to punch above their weight because of favorable matchups created by having Parsons on the field. Remove him, and they become what they are. Solid to average, and in some instances, below average players.
Here’s the most instructive stat highlighting what Parsons has meant to this defense. Since being drafted in 2021, the Cowboys are No. 1 in defensive EPA per play when Parsons is on the field. They are dead last when he’s not.
The Micah Parsons Trade Is Not Herschel Walker 2.0
You knew it was coming. Jerry had to draw the parallel between trading away their best player in 1989 and doing it again today.
“The other thing that I would say is that we have a chance to get a minimum of three, and it could very easily be as many as five, really top players,” he said. “We’ve got to look at three to five, to one, over who’s going to help you win the most.”
But the context is markedly different.
The Cowboys were terrible in 1989. Like, really atrocious. It was Year 1 of the Jimmy Johnson era, and Dallas had the worst roster in football; they’d go on to finish that season 1-15. The Walker trade was a nuclear move to jumpstart a rebuild that was already in progress—and it worked. Dallas turned those picks into Emmitt Smith, Darren Woodson, Russell Maryland, and others. They got younger, faster, and more athletic.
That possibility is slim this time around.
Green Bay is a legitimate Super Bowl contender now and in the near future. Those first-rounders Dallas just acquired are likely to fall in the late 20s, if not 30s. And while Dallas has historically done well in the draft, it’s still a crapshoot. The fact is, the Cowboys just traded away exactly the kind of player you pray falls into your lap in Round 1.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that the Cowboys just sold low on the one guy who made the defense formidable. Instead of building a defense around your best player—accentuating his strengths—you shipped him out and hit reset. That doesn’t feel calculated. It feels reckless.
So, Why Did Jerry Really Do This?
Much like Nico Harrison in the aftermath of the Luka trade, Jerry had to rationalize the Micah Parsons trade by saying it would make the team better. Honestly, what else is he supposed to say?
But anyone who knows anything about Jerry knows the real reason.
Ego. Lots, and lots, of ego.
Here were the players involved:
Jerry Jones: arguably the greatest and most powerful owner in professional sports, with an ego to match.
David Mulugheta: the most powerful and influential agent in the NFL.
Micah Parsons: the Cowboys’ best player, who’s unabashedly outspoken and was more than willing to air out Jerry’s dirty laundry.
That’s a powder keg. An explosion was always coming.
When the details of the March meeting between Jones and Parsons leaked, it set the stage for a standoff that, in hindsight, could only end one way.
Jones has a reputation for dealing directly with players to cut more team-friendly deals. It worked with Troy Aikman. It worked with Tyron Smith. But those negotiations stayed quiet, because the players kept it that way. Micah didn’t.
He made Jerry look slimy, and everyone piled on. For what felt like the first time, fans (of all teams) really started hammering the Cowboys for getting worked over in contract talks. Despite being an open secret for years, the spotlight turned on Dallas’ habit of waiting until the last moment to sign stars. Costing them millions more than if they’d just handled it early.
For a number of reasons, this negotiation became personal. Back in March, Jerry publicly claimed he didn’t even know Parsons’ agent’s name and refused to deal with him. Parsons demanded that his agent be involved (shocking that he even had to say that). And for reasons that can only be explained by ego, Jerry refused to give in.
The result is that a generational player is out the door. And it’s hard to imagine this one not haunting the Cowboys for years to come.
A Bewilderingly Mixed Fan Reaction
You’d think trading away your best player—a generational talent on a Hall of Fame trajectory—would send the fanbase into a tizzy.
Shockingly, that hasn’t been the reaction.
Sure, plenty of level-headed fans are furious and see this for what it is: a self-inflicted wound that you don’t recover from overnight. A decision driven by ego instead of reason.
And yet… there’s a surprisingly large chunk of fans that feels fine with it.
In fact, many are flat-out happy to see him gone.
In every sport, there’s always a segment of the fanbase who wants players to shut up and play. Who will call them greedy for wanting to be paid what they’re worth, and selfish for pushing back when that doesn’t happen.
The same fans who spent four years cheering for Parsons now call him greedy, selfish, and immature. A guy who faded late into the year, disappeared in the playoffs, and lacked leadership.
Funny how quickly opinions change.
Whether some fans want to admit it or not, they’re secretly thrilled to see a rich, white billionaire “put a young, loud Black athlete in his place.” Never mind the fact that Parsons just got everything he wanted and will likely spend the rest of his career making Dallas regret the day they let him walk.
So the reaction has been mixed. Loud, but definitely not unanimous. Frustrated, but not revolting. And maybe that’s the most damning part of all.
Micah Parsons, and Cowboys Fans, Deserved Better
Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
The Micah Parsons trade saga is everything that is wrong with the Cowboys.
Parsons wasn’t perfect. He could be a “bad body language” guy. He had a podcast—and didn’t always filter himself. And yeah, he had moments where he fell short as a leader.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Whatever criticisms have surfaced over the past few days are massive overcorrections.
Parsons embraced being a Cowboy. Loved it. He played through injury and gave everything on the field. He brought energy, pride, and an element of fear to a Cowboys defense that otherwise had none.
Even amid all the chaos, Parsons has been gracious. He hasn’t gone scorched earth, and hasn’t fired back at any fans who are now calling him greedy and selfish. That honestly makes it sting more.
This isn’t just the loss of a generational talent on the football field. It’s the loss of a genuinely good dude. Parsons’ talent and production far outweighed his flaws, but now that he’s gone, critics are conveniently amplifying his so-called ‘negatives’.
The Cowboys were never going to get fair value for a player like him. But this return? Gimme a break. At least the Mavericks got an All-NBA player back in their deal. Dallas’ return is embarrassing.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: this is an awful trade. And for many fans, whatever goodwill Jerry Jones had left just evaporated. This wasn’t a difficult decision made in the service of a better future. It was a power move rooted in ego and control.
Micah Parsons didn’t fail the Cowboys.
The Cowboys failed him.
And the rest of us are left to watch, and wonder, what might have been.
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