If the Cowboys had to trade Micah Parsons, CeeDee Lamb wishes it wouldn’t have taken so long.
Lamb visited PFT Live today on Radio Row at Super Bowl LX and talked about losing Parsons as a teammate and how difficult it was to see Parsons’ long negotiations with the Cowboys overshadow the team’s preparation for the 2025 season.
“As his teammate and as his brother I wish I would have known what the situation would have been and we wouldn’t have dragged it out,” Lamb said.
As Parsons showed up to training camp but generally declined to participate until he got a new contract, Lamb kept thinking a deal would get done for Parsons to stay with the Cowboys long-term. It didn’t.
“Let’s just prepare to have him, as we go through our preparation and seeing him out there in his pads, we’re like, ‘Any day now.’ And that day never came for us,” Lamb said.
Instead, it happened for the Packers, who traded two first-round draft picks and Kenny Clark to the Cowboys for Parsons. And only after a long process that was tough for Parsons’ teammates in Dallas to endure.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott had a real Pro Bowl season, with a 67.3 completion percentage, 4,552 yards, 30 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 99.5 passer rating. The Cowboys finished 7-9-1 and missed the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
For all the team records he has accumulated in a 10-year career, Prescott acknowledged he has a monkey on his back.
“Monkey, gorilla, you know, gets bigger each year that we don’t make it,” Prescott told Clarence Hill of All City DLLS from the Pro Bowl Games, “and that’s real. It’s one of those things. You get here as a rookie and everybody thinks they can win the Super Bowl. and they think how easy it is. And when you have a year like I did as a rookie, you think you going to have multiple opportunities. And now in Year 10, having opportunities and not doing what you wanted as a team and individually, it hurts. And every year it just means even more. You want to be here, and you want to be playing. But the mindset I have is we go through everything for a purpose. And you can’t tell me that all these 10 years and every experience I’ve had wasn’t for us to be better and get there next year.”
The Cowboys have not been back to the Super Bowl since the franchise’s fifth championship following the 1995 season. Prescott is 2-5 in the postseason after his predecessor, Tony Romo, went 2-4.
“Well, yeah, certainly you would think that by now that would happen,” said former Cowboys head coach and now NBC analyst Jason Garrett, who coached Prescott for four seasons. We have our stories when we were there as a coaching staff, and some close games we played in the divisional round and chances to go to the championship game. But we didn’t get it done. And there’s a bottom line to this. And the Cowboys, until they break through, people are going to still be talking about it.”
The Cowboys are hiring Georgia outside linebackers coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe for the same position, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reports.
Uzo-Diribe confirmed the news in a message to UGASports.
Uzo-Diribe, 33, was a defensive lineman at Colorado from 2010-13 and spent time with the Saints but never made the roster. He began his coaching career at his alma mater in 2016.
He coached at Kansas (2019-20) and SMU (2021), and for a month at TCU in 2022, before joining Georgia’s staff ahead of the 2022 season.
Uzo-Diribe joins Marcus Dixon, Derrick Ansley and Ryan Smith as position coaches under new coordinator Christian Parker.
The 49ers are giving up a home game to play internationally in 2026, team owner Jed York said.
In an interview with Imagen Sports, York said the 49ers will play one of their nine home games outside the U.S., with Mexico his preferred destination.
“We always have communication with the league,” York said, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “For us, Mexico is one of our markets. We will most likely give up a home game this season to play abroad, and Mexico is always number one on my list.”
The NFL announced a Mexico City game in December is planned along with the three in London and one each in Paris, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Melbourne and Munich. The Saints are the hosts of the Paris game.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones recently campaigned for his team to play a game in Mexico City. The Cowboys have played only one international game, which was a win over the Jaguars in 2014. The NFL introduced new rules in 2022 requiring every team to participate in an international game at least once every eight years.
The Cowboys have not fulfilled the requirement, and they have never given up a home game.
The Cowboys host the 49ers in 2026.
Micah Parsons’ relationship with the Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones came to a bitter and disappointing end when the team traded him to Green Bay last August. While the edge rusher said he has nothing to be mad about since he “went to another historic organization” that paid him “a historic amount,” Parsons does regret that contract negotiations became personal.
“I just wish some of those things never happened. You know what I mean?,” Parsons told Clarence Hill of All City DLLS Cowboys. “I wish that he never brought me into the office and just let the agent speak. And I wish he hadn’t compromised our relationship. I thought me and Jerry had a good relationship up to that point until this offseason, and it’s sad that it went to shit like that.”
Parsons’ relationship with Jones will never be the same, although Parsons claims he holds no animosity toward his former owner.
“I don’t know about Jerry, but I have no bad blood,” Parsons said. “If I saw Jerry today, I would shake hands with him and say thank you for the opportunity I had to be a Cowboy.”
While Parsons may have forgiven, he has not forgotten.
Jones thought they had a handshake deal on “term, amount, guarantees,” without Parsons’ agent present. Parsons eventually directed the Cowboys to deal directly with his agent, David Mulugheta. Parsons said that March 18 meeting was the last time he talked to Jones.
Parsons and Jones have feuded publicly since, with Jones insisting the Cowboys won the Aug. 28 trade.
“There’s only two people who know the real truth — me and Jerry Jones,” Parsons said. “I’m not mad or anything. I went to another historic organization. I got paid a historic amount. So I got really nothing to be mad about in this world.”
Parsons spent four seasons in Dallas and made four Pro Bowls and 52.5 sacks.
