Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones remains committed to the bit.
On Thursday, he justified trading linebacker Micah Parsons by explaining that the Cowboys need to stop the run. On Saturday, he reiterated the position during an appearance on NFL Network.
“Our player that we got is outstanding,” Jones said regarding defensive lineman Kenny Clark, via Tommy Yarrish of DallasCowboys.com. “We knew that, and he’ll immediately start making plays for us here when we get up there against those Philadelphia Eagles. But the most important thing is we really wanted to stop the run. And Micah’s a wonderful football player. We think this gives us a better chance to stop the run. Other teams knew that, and they threw the ball out quick and they ran against us when we had Micah and they’re really emphasizing pass rush.”
Still, when it’s time to pass, Micah brings the heat.
“The most important player on a football team is the quarterback,” former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said on Friday’s PFT Live. “The second most important player on a football team is the guy who can negatively affect the quarterback. And those guys are hard to come by, and ever since that guy has come into the league, he has been a dominant player.”
So now the Cowboys will have to hope they can muster a potent pass rush without Parsons. If they can’t, they won’t have to worry about whether they can stop the run.
In the immediate aftermath of the Micah Parsons trade, the Cowboys held a press conference aimed at declaring victory. The real winners — the Packers and Parsons — didn’t feel compelled to say a word about it on Thursday.
Whether the Packers got the better of the deal remains to be seen. For now, it looks like the next in a line of rare but aggressive moves aimed at augmenting a high-end quarterback with a high-end defensive player. From Reggie White to Charles Woodson and now to Micah, the Packers don’t do it often. But when they do it, it tends to work.
It worked very well for Parsons, who gamed the current system in his favor. Which means that the system, in time, will probably change.
Here’s how the Micah Parsons project went.
First, he didn’t hold out. He showed up. He declined to practice. He created a series of distractions and challenges for the Cowboys.
Second, he didn’t cite his contract as the basis for his hold-in. If he had, at some point it would have had to end. Instead, he cited back tightness. It didn’t seem to be embellished, exaggerated, or fabricated.
Third, he didn’t blink. The Cowboys believed he’d eventually decide to play football, even at a fifth-year option salary far below the market as it existed before Micah blew the lid off of it. As Week 1 approached, it became obvious that Micah’s commitment to getting what he deserved would overcome his desire to play football.
Fourth, the Cowboys did blink. In lieu of sparking a showdown over whether Micah’s back was truly injured, they traded him at a time when they would have preferred to keep him for 2025 and to trade him after the season.
Parsons, when he did speak to reporters more than a day after the trade, provided an important P.S. to the process by saying, “Physically, I’m great.” That raised eyebrows in the media. It also has raised eyebrows around the league.
The recent misadventures of the NFL Players Association included a slam-dunk grievance arising from former NFLPA president, and former NFLPA chief strategy officer, suggesting that unhappy players should fake injuries. With Micah claiming he’s physically great two days after a report emerged that he’d be seeking a second opinion, it looks like Parsons incorporated Tretter’s advice and brilliantly navigated the current system to get what he wanted.
Which leads to an obvious conclusion. The league will likely try to change the system in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement.
In recent labor deals, the league has made it harder and harder to hold out. The 2020 CBA, which made it even harder to hold out, ushered in the age of the hold-in.
The next CBA will find a way to usher out the hold-in. Or the league will at least try to do that.
At the core, it’s about power. The NFL wants to keep it. The NFL doesn’t want the players to have it. Whether it’s through finagling fully-guaranteed contracts or through dictating which team they’ll play for or any other way to stand up to the system and win, the league wants to keep the teams in charge.
The hold-in process gives players who are willing to cite an injury (real or imagined) and not play real power. It ultimately gave Parsons the power to get out of Dallas.
Despite the spin from Jerry Jones that the trade makes the Cowboys better, they wanted to keep Parsons — at least for another season. Parsons stared them down. Parsons won.
The league will collectively attempt to ensure that doesn’t happen again, to the Cowboys or to any other team. Mark it down as one of the things the NFL will attempt to jam into the next labor deal.
The Cowboys announced on Saturday that Lee Roy Jordan has died at the age of 84.
Jordan was a 1963 first-round pick in Dallas and he remained with the team through the 1976 season. He was part of the team’s first Super Bowl champion team and was named a second-team All-Pro twice during his run with the Doomsday Defense in Dallas. He was inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor in 1989.
“With fearless instincts, leadership and a relentless work ethic, Jordan was the embodiment of the Cowboys spirt,” the team’s statement said.
Jordan went to Alabama and won a national title with the Crimson Tide before moving up to the NFL. He was the sixth pick in 1963 and had 32 interceptions during his time as a centerpiece of the Cowboys defense. He had four more interceptions in the playoffs, including two during the run to the Super Bowl VI title.
Current Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer will never (at least while he still has that job) share his true thoughts on the decision to trade linebacker Micah Parsons to the Packers. Former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett had no qualms about sharing his unvarnished reaction to Thursday’s stunning move.
“I was shocked,” Garrett said on Friday’s PFT Live. “You know, the most important player on a football team is the quarterback. The second most important player on a football team is the guy who can negatively affect the quarterback. And those guys are hard to come by, and ever since that guy has come into the league, he has been a dominant player.
“And you and I have talked about this a lot, Mike — he’s transformative. He changes the whole team. If you think about the Cowboys in 2020, they were 6-10, they weren’t a very good team, and then he gets there along with defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, and all of a sudden, they’re a different team. And if you look at all those interceptions that their DBs were making, [DaRon] Bland and [Trevon] Diggs and you’re intercepting them and running back for touchdowns . . . look what’s going on around the quarterback on those throws.
“Micah Parsons is the guy causing all the problems, and those guys are hard to come by. If you think about, you know, four years, 52 sacks, he and Reggie White, being used in the same sentences. He’s an impactful player, and I was shocked that they let him out of the building.”
If you’ve watched the excellent Netflix docuseries on the Cowboys of the 1990s, it’s clear that the arrival of pass rusher Charles Haley changed everything. And, before Micah arrived, the Cowboys had been trying to find another Charles Haley.
They finally got one. They decided not to pay him. They decided to try to kick the can of his fifth-year option. They stepped on a rake instead, alienating the player and setting up a “hurt back” stare down that resulted in the Cowboys declaring victory and retreating.
The defense will retreat without him. The team will have a harder time succeeding. And the Packers will be the beneficiaries of that.
Packers quarterback Jordan Love appeared on Micah Parsons’ podcast during Super Bowl week and said he wanted Parsons to join him on the Packers. At the time, few thought that could happen.
Now that it has happened, Parsons was asked about Love’s recruiting him to Green Bay and said it wasn’t a serious discussion because at that time, Parsons thought he’d sign a long-term contract to remain in Dallas, and not get traded.
“I don’t think it was ever a serious conversation because I never thought I’d be traded, but that’s the harsh reality. Me and Jordan, we’re super close, having the same agent,” Parsons said. “We’ve got a very good relationship.”
Parsons was traded by the Cowboys for the Packers’ next two first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. That’s a win-now move by the Packers, and that’s what Parsons is in Green Bay to do.
“Winning means everything to me,” Parsons said. “I don’t think you’re going to find a more competitive person on the team or in the NFL.”
