Around this time last year, the Dallas Cowboys pulled off a blockbuster trade that sent superstar pass rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. A year later, team owner and general manager Jerry Jones has no regrets.
The Cowboys sent Parsons to Green Bay in return for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and first-round picks in the 2026 and 2027 NFL Drafts. The Cowboys then used that 2027 first-rounder as part of a package to acquire defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets, and used the 2026 first-round pick to select pass rusher Malachi Lawrence in April.
With everything the Cowboys ultimately got in return, Jones is happy with the trade, even a year later as Parsons remains a playmaker for the Packers.
“Even though Micah’s an outstanding talent [that] anybody would like to have, the bottom line is that I like what the result of the trade has ended up as I stand here today,” Jones said Thursday via ESPN.
Jones went as far as to compare the trade to the 1989 trade that sent superstar running back Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings. While the Cowboys lost a big-name player, the trade ultimately helped build the Cowboys’ dynasty of the 1990s, when the team won three Super Bowls.
“You could say those picks got us key players, but the main thing that the Herschel Walker trade did, it caused me to be more aggressive and caused us to, if you will, take more risk because we had more picks,” Jones said.
“It’s like going to Las Vegas with some extra money in your pocket or going out there with the baby’s new pair of shoes and formula money in your pocket. You can’t be as good a crapshooter as you are when you’ve got the baby’s new pair of shoes throwing out there with it.
“So, in a way,” he added, “this actually created a mental part to us and to my role in it with me, to step out and make the moves and take, if you will, risks that are involved to be where we are today with a complete makeover of the defense.”
Jones said the team would never have been able to pull off such a trade if Parsons was not such a great and in-demand player.
“Otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to make that kind of trade. That’s why it worked,” Jones said. “But the fact that we revamped our defense, that was an instigator toward that attitude: ‘Let’s come in here and change this up, let’s get rush from the interior, let’s be stronger on the run in the interior with an emphasis on those guys in the middle.’ That’s not an accident. That that’s what you see out there from the inside.”
Needless to say, it sounds like he’s happy about the move, even as Parsons emerges as a difference-maker for another team.
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