Linebacker Quay Walker was added to the Packers’ injury report on Tuesday.
Walker was listed as a limited participant in practice due to a quad injury. The participation level was an estimate because the team conducted a walkthrough and the final injury report before Thursday’s game against the Commanders will come on Wednesday.
Walker had nine tackles in Green Bay’s Week 1 win over the Lions.
The Packers moved wide receiver Jayden Reed (foot) from out of practice to limited, but right tackle Zach Tom (oblique), left guard Aaron Banks (ankle, groin), defensive lineman Brenton Cox Jr. (groin), and cornerback Bo Melton (shoulder) were listed as out for the second straight day.
Safety Zayne Anderson (knee), cornerback Nate Hobbs (knee), defensive end Micah Parsons (back), defensive lineman Barryn Sorrell (knee), and wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks (calf) remain in the limited category. Wide receiver Matthew Golden (ankle) was bumped up to full participation along with quarterback Jordan Love (left thumb) and punter Daniel Whelan (right knee).
For Micah Parsons’ first three seasons, Dan Quinn was his defensive coordinator with the Cowboys.
Parsons was a first-team All-Pro for two of those seasons, also winning AP defensive rookie of the year. He was No. 2 and No. 3 in defensive player of the year voting in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
So even though he’s now the Commanders’ head coach, Quinn knows Parsons well. When Quinn was asked how to combat someone like Parsons in a Tuesday press conference, Quinn asked, “Are you asking you what would I do if I were coaching him?”
“Sure,” the reporter replied.
“Yeah, I’d sit him this week on a short week,” Quinn joked.
Really, though, Quinn noted that limiting Parsons’ production starts with making sure the team knows where he is before every snap.
“[I]f you have a vulnerability in a spot, you want to make sure you can fortify that to his strengths,” Quinn said. “You don’t just leave it to chance and see what happens, you want to make sure there’s a plan to go into it.
“So, for teams like Green Bay, they’ve got a number of good players,” Quinn added. “And that makes it also more challenging when this one, and this one, and that one over there [are all good]. So when there’s just one player to stop, and [you] say, this is what we want to do — that’s easier than when there’s multiple people in different locations. So, in my experience, the best teams have a number of players that were high-level hitters, and now this one gets too much attention, you leave this one open — he’s going to shoot the three and make you pay. And you want to have a balance in how you do things to make sure that one player doesn’t get too much attention, but also enough that they don’t wreck the game.”
Parsons played only 45 percent of Green Bay’s defensive snaps in Week 1, but still was able to pressure Lions quarterback Jared Goff and pick up a sack.
We’ll see if the Packers raise Parsons’ playing time and how effective he is against his old coach on Thursday night.
The relationship between the Cowboys and linebacker Micah Parsons went sideways due in part to the insistence of Jones to negotiate directly with the player — and to treat his agent like a bystander.
Even though the strategy blew up in Jerry’s face, he fully intends to keep doing it. Regardless of whether it violates the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and the NFL Players Association.
He thinks it doesn’t.
“There is no violation,” Jones declared during a Tuesday morning appearance on 105.3 The Fan. “Period. I have all the authority in the world, and the player has all the authority in the world, to negotiate directly with me. There is no equivocation. There.”
There may be no equivocation, but there’s also no accuracy. The NFLPA is the exclusive representative of all players generally, and the NFLPA delegates its authority to agents whom the NFLPA certifies.
Unless the player doesn’t have an agent, the team must negotiate with the agent. The problem is that the CBA is toothless when it comes to punching the team in the face for violating that provision of the labor deal. The first offense results in no punishment. The second offense, and every offense thereafter, subjects the team to a fine of (for 2025) $62,000. With no progressive discipline.
“Can I work through an agent or an attorney?” Jones said. “An attorney can do the very same thing. Do it all the time. It usually ends up a little of the both on a pretty high profile player, but there is no violation. I have every right — can you imagine if you didn’t have the right when you’re the one that decides whether to trade him or not? How could you not have the right?”
You don’t have the right because the CBA says you don’t have the right. It’s no different than the owners bypassing the NFLPA to negotiate a new labor deal with the players directly.
It’s clear that Jerry doesn’t care, largely because the CBA relegates the penalty to a parking ticket.
“And so the point is that there’s no equivocation here and been no rule violation, and certainly there’s, you know, I’m trying to give a third-party affirmation here, but I will 100 times [pay] the fine or the penalty,” Jones said. “I will 100 times if I were ever assessed on anything I did with Michael relative to the communication or non-communication with the agent, I’ll 100 times and give it to the Salvation Army.”
He’ll do it because the amount of the punishment is peanuts in comparison to the money he can save by getting the player to negotiate his own deal. The Cowboys believed that Micah had agreed to a deal that pays $40.5 million per year in new money. Micah eventually signed a deal worth at least $46.5 million per year in new money.
That’s $6 million per year that he could have saved, right there. He’d need to be fined nearly 100 times PER YEAR to offset the cash he would have saved, if Micah and his agent, David Mulugheta, hadn’t worked the board to put Jerry in checkmate. (Given that he repeatedly used the phrase “100 times,” there’s a good chance he did the math, too.)
Last week, NFLPA interim executive director David White seemed to suggest that the union had told Jerry to “knock it off.” It’s clear that he doesn’t intend to.
The question now becomes what will the union do about this? Will they let Jerry continue to disrespect the process, simply because he can? To repeatedly misstate and misinterpret the obligation of all teams to negotiate with the agents, not with the players?
Ultimately, Jerry doesn’t care. Nothing about the process forces him to care. He’ll do what he wants, and if he’s ever fined he’ll treat it as a cost of doing business the way he damn well pleases.
The Eagles were interested in trading for Micah Parsons, but the Cowboys weren’t going to make that move at any price.
That was the message from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on Tuesday. Reports of the Eagles’ interest surfaced after Parsons was dealt to the Packers, with Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reporting over the weekend that Philadelphia offered two first-round picks and other draft considerations for the defensive end.
Glazer also reported that the Cowboys preferred to trade Parsons to an AFC team but didn’t get the offers they hoped for before finalizing a deal with the Packers for two first-rounders and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. During an appearance on 105.3 The Fan, Jones was asked if the Cowboys circled back to the Eagles to see if they’d sweeten their proposal.
“No counter offer,” Jones said, via multiple reporters.
It makes sense that the Cowboys would be reluctant to strengthen a division rival, but that approach contrasts with Jones’s post-trade comments. He emphasized that the compensation and cap space created by the deal gave Dallas a better chance to improve than if they had committed to a massive Parsons extension. By that logic, the same financial strain and loss of draft capital would have been just as damaging to the Eagles’ long-term outlook.
Selling that perspective to Cowboys fans picturing Parsons in an Eagles uniform would have been difficult. Still, that would have been true with any trade — and a deal with Philadelphia might have given Dallas even more material to back up its claim that brighter days are ahead.
The arrival of Micah Parsons has lifted expectations for what the Packers can accomplish as a team this season, but it will also alter the roles of some players on their defensive front.
Lukas Van Ness is at the top of that list. While Van Ness started at one edge rusher spot against the Lions on Sunday, Parsons is expected to take over that job at some point in the near future and play more than the 45 percent of snaps he logged in the opener.
A change in role and a drop in snap count might not be bad news for Van Ness, though. He moved inside at times when Parsons joined Rashan Gary on the edges and recorded a sack of Lions quarterback Jared Goff in Green Bay’s win. After the game, Van Ness said it was a sign that Parsons’s presence creates “favorable matchups and the one-on-ones that we want,” and Parsons added that he wants to make sure Van Ness sees a spike in productivity this year.
“I’m telling you, I think Van Ness is going to have his best year yet,” Parsons said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “I’m going to make sure of it. That guy, he’s a very selfless player, like very selfless. He’s one of them guys that can go anywhere. He plays the run, he does everything. He’s the high-quality player that you just want to be around. I’m going to make sure that guy gets as many plays as possible.”
The first look at the Packers’ defense with Parsons was an enjoyable one for Green Bay. The prospect of it getting even better should bring plenty of smiles heading into Week 2.
The Packers released their first injury report of the week on Monday and it shows that three key offensive players were listed as out ahead of their Thursday game against the Commanders.
Wide receiver Jayden Reed (foot), right tackle Zach Tom (oblique), and left guard Aaron Banks (ankle, groin) make up that group. The Packers didn’t actually practice on Monday, so the participation levels are estimations.
Reed had three catches for 45 yards and a touchdown on 18 snaps in the win over the Lions. Tom played 30 snaps while Banks was on the field for 43 of the 48 offensive plays.
Defensive lineman Brenton Cox Jr. (groin) and cornerback Bo Melton (shoulder) were also listed as out of practice. Safety Zayne Anderson (knee), wide receiver Matthew Golden (ankle), cornerback Nate Hobbs (knee), defensive end Micah Parsons (back), defensive lineman Barryn Sorrell (knee), and wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks (calf) were listed as limited.
Quarterback Jordan Love (left thumb) and punter Daniel Whelan (right knee) would have been full participants in practice for Green Bay.
Micah Parsons did not need an epidural in his back to make his Packers debut Sunday. The star edge rusher played 29 of 65 snaps, per ESPN Research, which was more snaps than Parsons was expected to play.
Parsons made an impact with three quarterback pressures, one of which resulted in red zone interception by Evan Williams. His only sack came when the game was out of reach.
He did all that with only a week of practice after a trade from Dallas on Aug. 28.
Parsons had held in with the Cowboys, not practicing as he awaited a contract extension from Dallas that never arrived. Instead, the Cowboys dealt him to the Packers.
Parsons sounded grateful to be in Green Bay but regretful that the trade didn’t come sooner.
“I’m telling you these last six months was super draining, super toxic for everyone,” Parsons said, via video from Matt Schneidman of TheAthletic.com. “It’s something that I don’t think no player should have to go through. I think players’ fates should be decided earlier. I think the fact that I was traded a week before the season was really outrageous and rough. It’s something where I could’ve been with these guys getting better and better and we could’ve had probably [an] even more dominant start if that was the decision we were going to make. I’m just happy that’s behind.
“These guys embraced me. They believe in my talents. They believed in me, and I’m just going to give these guys everything I have because I know what’s at stake and I know what they gave up for me to be here, and I’m going to do what it takes for us to win.”
The Cowboys made a bad situation worse by trading linebacker Micah Parsons to a conference rival in Green Bay. The Cowboys ultimately didn’t have many choices.
It came down to Green Bay or Philadelphia.
Via Jay Glazer of Fox Sports, the Cowboys began trying to trade Parsons roughly a week before the trade happened. Dallas, however, could find no traction with any AFC teams.
It’s kind of amazing that no AFC team would try to get Parsons. The Chiefs have made it to five of the last six Super Bowls, and other elite teams are trying to close the window on the Kingdom’s reign.
The Bills, the Ravens, the Chargers, the Broncos. All of them should have been interested.
The Eagles absolutely were. They offered, per Glazer, two first-round picks, a third-round pick, a fifth-round pick and more. But the Cowboys weren’t going to trade Parsons to a division rival that is already more stacked than most if not all other NFL teams.
The Micah Parsons era in Green Bay starts on Sunday. And, to no surprise, he’s expected to play.
Officially listed as questionable for the Week 1 home game against the Lions, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that Parsons is expected to play, but that he’s not expected to play on every down.
Per Schefter: “The Packers still are figuring out how much to play him; it will be some, but not the full amount.”
This meshes with the report from Thursday night’s NBC pregame show, with elaboration from PFT. He was, as of two nights ago, trending toward playing — but not playing the entire game. The expectation at the time was that he’d play in obvious passing downs.
From our story: “Anything other than full participation will be less about the injury and more about not knowing the playbook when his assignment is anything other than ‘get to the quarterback.’”
The Lions will need to have a plan to keep that from happening, whenever the first Packer to wear No. 1 since Curly Lambeau steps onto the grass at Lambeau Field. If they don’t, he’ll be harassing quarterback Jared Goff on a regular basis, even if Parsons ultimately plays an irregular amount.
Will No. 1 be on the field for the Packers this Sunday?
It’s still a little up in the air.
The Packers are listing newly acquired linebacker Micah Parsons as questionable for the season opener against the Lions.
Parsons has been limited in practice all week with his back injury.
“He’s looked limited, but he’s done a nice job in that regard,” head coach Matt LaFleur said in his Friday press conference, via Matt Schneidman of TheAthletic.com. “He’s a freak, so that certainly stands out when he’s out there.”
Parsons has been dealing with a back issue throughout the preseason, though he was also seeking a new contract from the Cowboys before they stunningly traded him to Green Bay.
There hasn’t been much question about it since he returned from surgery on his left thumb, but quarterback Jordan Love is officially set to play on Sunday. He was a full participant for all three practice days and is off the injury report.
Safety Zayne Anderson (knee), cornerback Nate Hobbs (knee), receiver Jayden Reed (foot), defensive lineman Barryn Sorrell (knee), receiver Dontayvion Wicks (calf), and receiver Savion Williams (hamstring) are all questionable for Week 1.
