The NFL’s offseason and preseason featured an ugly and contentious confrontation between Cowboys owner/G.M. Jerry Jones and former Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons. The situation ended in the shocking trade to the Packers, and the sniping from both men continued for weeks thereafter.
With Parsons suffering a season-ending ACL tear on Sunday, Jones has opted to be far more charitable in his expression of sympathy than at least one other high-profile person has opted to be this week regarding an unrelated tragedy.
“I’m sad for Micah,” Jones said Tuesday morning on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “That’s quite a challenge. I wish him the very best on his recovery. Michael Irvin said when he had his [ACL] surgery during, I think, his second year with the Cowboys, he said he realized what football really did mean to him. And he said the surgery really launched him into the best part of his career, because he got to feel what it might look like not to play again. There’s a lot of ways you can couch this thing. But, Micah, I wish you the very best.”
Whether Jerry truly means it doesn’t matter. He said it. At a time when some folks can’t even muster the ability to suppress their own personally-held poisonous beliefs, it’s nice to see someone choose to say the right and honorable thing.
They can’t all be winners, can they?
As the NFL continues to make Christmas a pro football holiday, the trend has potential pitfalls. Including the very real possibility that the games to be played on December 25 will have little if any meaning to either or both of the teams involved.
Recent developments have made this season’s three-pack of games something far less enticing than gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
It will get started in nine days with Cowboys at Commanders. Both teams are more cooked than overdone roast beast.
Then comes Lions-Vikings. Detroit is scrambling to avoid missing the playoffs, which gives the game a little pop. The Vikings — who have won two in a row and are 6-8 — were eliminated on Sunday, when the Bears beat the Browns.
The day ends with the Broncos at the Chiefs. With the Chiefs eliminated. And with Gardner Minshew playing quarterback for the home team. Why would folks in Kansas City want to venture out on Christmas night to watch that one?
For in-home viewers who root for other teams, there’s a certain schadenfreude factor that will prompt those who had developed Chiefs fatigue to tune in and relish what should be a long night for the franchise that had appeared in three straight Super Bowls and five of the last six. Still, it will hardly be must-see streaming for Prime Video.
One factor is the calendar. With Labor Day landing on September 1 this year, the season started as early as it ever does. Which puts Christmas in Week 17. Which makes it harder to effectively predict in May the games that will matter in late December.
For that reason, don’t be surprised if the NFL eventually builds flexibility into the Christmas games, like it does for the late-season Saturday when five games are flagged as candidates for the three standalone spots.
Few teams are eliminated and thus irrelevant by Thanksgiving. More teams are and will be out of it by the time Christmas rolls around. If the NFL wants to maximize the audience for those games, it will have to either hit the bull’s-eye in May, or it needs to have the ability to move the dart.
On Thanksgiving Day, the Cowboys’ playoff hopes were alive and well. They were coming off back-to-back wins over the Super Bowl LIX teams, had a favorable remaining schedule and, after a trade for defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, had the defense playing better.
That good feeling didn’t last nearly long enough for Cowboys fans as Dallas lost to the Lions and Vikings in back-to-back games.
The Cowboys aren’t mathematically eliminated, but realistically, the team knows it won’t be advancing for a second consecutive season.
Quarterback Dak Prescott called it “shitty” to be in the position the Cowboys are in now.
“Yeah, definitely surprised,” Prescott said after the 34-26 loss to the Vikings on Sunday night. “Especially after the bye week and the trades got rolling like we did for those few weeks, and then watch the confidence just skyrocket. [We] stopped teams scoring at will, coming back from 21 points [against the Eagles]. Just a lot of good wins there to be in this position. Just reminds you that every play matters. It’s a hard game. Those guys get paid, too. They practice throughout the week and prepare no different than we do. It’s tough. I’m definitely surprised, hurt, pissed off, frustrated, but all I can do is get better tomorrow.”
Prescott said the Cowboys won’t stop playing hard just because the playoffs appear out of reach. They have the Chargers on Sunday in the home finale before closing out the season at the Commanders and at the Giants.
“You’re a professional football player. You have to come to work and give your absolute best, regardless,” Prescott said. “Unfortunately, I’m sure the playoffs are out of the picture. But, it’s about taking pride in who you are as a man, and not only that and your job and everything that’s gotten you to this point. I know for a lot of guys, it’s just the business of the world, right? That’s interviews for some people. You can’t just give up. You can’t just stop. You can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re not going to playoffs.’ It’s the National Football League. I just saw a team Thursday night that’s not going to the playoffs [in the Falcons] beat a good team [in the Bucs] and knock them out.
“We’ve got to show up and just do our job, and that starts throughout the week. When you get to the game days, it’s a celebration of the hard work that you’ve put in through your preparation. Nothing’s going to change for me, and that’s going to be my influence as a leader. My message to anybody around me is take pride in who you are as a man and as a football player and the job responsibility that you have and what that entails is giving your best every day. And if you don’t, you probably won’t be in this league for long.”
During Sunday night’s Vikings-Cowboys game, NBC’s cameras captured an image of Cowboys owners Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones, watching the action from their suite. Stephen was speaking into a walkie-talkie.
Beyond the jokes it inspired (some funny, some not), the situation sparked obvious speculation: Who was Stephen talking to?
Via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com, Stephen Jones explained the situation during an appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. Jones said that he uses it for injury updates from the press box and other “important updates” from around AT&T Stadium.
The situation raises questions because of the NFL rule that prohibits in-game communication with sideline personnel during games. In 2015, then-Browns G.M. Ray Farmer was suspended four games and the team was fined $250,000 for texts sent by Farmer to an assistant coach and another employee on the sideline regarding strategy and use of personnel.
That’s not an issue in this case, based on the explanation given by Stephen Jones. And while there’s no reason to dispute the accuracy of his version of the events, would anyone admit to using a walkie-talkie or other device to engage in communications that may not be allowed?
Text messages can be preserved and reviewed. A walkie-talkie is a low-tech way to create no paper trail. Absent simultaneous evidence showing that someone on the sideline had the other walkie-talkie, there’s no digital smoking gun.
The Packers’ fear has been confirmed.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, an MRI confirmed that star defender Micah Parsons has, in fact, suffered a torn ACL.
He faces a recovery time of at least the next nine months.
Parsons went down on a non-contact play late in the third quarter of Sunday’s eventual loss to the Broncos. Parsons was trying to change directions while chasing quarterback Bo Nix.
Parsons’ injury brings his first season with the Packers to a premature close. In his 14 games with Green Bay this year, Parsons registered 12.5 sacks with 12 tackles for loss, 26 quarterback hits, and two forced fumbles.
