It’s difficult to defend the Dallas Cowboys’ decision to trade Micah Parsons prior to the 2025 season. Parsons is arguably the best pass rusher in the NFL; a difference maker who teams scheme against and a moveable chess piece defensive coordinators dream of. He’s a player just entering his prime and he’s a player most Dallas fans thought would retire a Cowboy.
How the Cowboys could trade him for what felt like just a modest return, was impossible to explain. How they could send him to one of Dallas’ biggest rivals was also a headscratcher. Conventional wisdom said the front office didn’t think he was as good as the fanbase thought he was. That he wouldn’t come back to haunt them and that rivals don’t matter. After additional details of the trade were made public this week, it’s proven that was clearly not the case.
Included in the Parsons-to-Green Bay trade was the stipulation the player could not be traded to an NFC East rival. National media focused on the Eagles in order to fan the flames of the Philadelphia-Dallas rivalry, but the reality was it was about any divisional opponent who the Cowboys would have to play twice.
“It’s obvious, it has its own definition,” Jerry Jones said during his weekly appearance on 105.3 The Fan. We didn’t want, without consideration, Parsons to be going to a team that we were gonna play twice a year. I think that says it all right there.”
The stipulation the Cowboys’ included speaks to the respect in which the Cowboys had for Parsons. Negotiations come with a finite number of deal breakers and the Cowboys saw to it a subsequent trade to the NFC East was a deal breaker worth pushing.
Dallas knew who they were giving up. They knew the impact the player made on the field and they new the danger they faced if that player made it back into the NFC East. To many fans, Green Bay and San Francisco are on a near equal hate-level as the Eagles, but since those other two play outside the division it’s seemingly an apples and oranges comparison to Jones.
Fans may never agree with trading Parsons to a conference rival like Green Bay. They may never agree trading him at all. But they have to feel good about the NFC East poison pill the Cowboys included on the deal and they have to feel good the front office at least acknowledges Parsons’ tremendous impact on the field. It’s a bright spot in an otherwise dark day in Cowboys history.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Cowboys ‘poison pill’ in Parsons’ trade proves Cowboys knew what they were doing
Reporting by Reid D Hanson, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
