The Dallas Cowboys take the field for the first game that matters under head coach Brian Schottenheimer in six days on the road at the defending Super Bowl champions, and when they do, two-time All Pro and four-time Pro Bowler Micah Parsons will not be on the field for them. As of Thursday’s blockbuster and stunning trade, Parsons is a member of the Green Bay Packers defense, and Kenny Clark is the latest Cowboys defender as the only player involved in the swap. The Cowboys also received two future
first-round picks from the Packers.
The very idea that Micah Parsons could be traded away from the Cowboys was a real possibility as early as August 1st, when Parsons took to twitter to publicly announce he’d handed a trade request to Stephen Jones himself. Even with nearly a month to process this possibility though, Thursday’s trade hit the sporting world like a bombshell.
Although this situation quickly took a different path to that of Dak Prescott’s or CeeDee Lamb’s when their contracts were handled by the front office, the expectation was still there that the destination would remain the same. Dallas would “fold” in some ways, costing themselves more like they always do, and pay Parsons to make him a long-term Cowboy.
As it turned out, the path that was never straight had one more surprising bend at the finish, with Parsons not only set to play in a new uniform after four years with America’s Team, but the green and gold of the Packers. The sight of this will only irk Cowboys’ faithful even more given the bad blood that’s been built between the Cowboys and Packers over the last decade and change, and these teams will meet on Sunday Night Football in Arlington in week four.
If there was one thing that remained within even a molecule of consistent throughout this entire Parsons ordeal, it was loud and heavy criticism for the Cowboys front office. The shortcomings of Parsons as a candidate to be the highest paid non-QB in league history, a trajectory at one time the Cowboys front office would still like us all to believe he was on, have hardly been aired out throughout this wild month. During which, everything else from previous negotiations dating all the way back to Dez Bryant, to names of agents and NFLPA staffers, to what Parsons did or didn’t have in his social media bios and profile pictures, have all had space.
The simple fact that the entire saga is now over can be seen as the only positive for almost all parties involved, although the ending is both fresh enough and controversial enough to be discussed from now right up until kickoff on opening night.
So, if it will take the Cowboys and Eagles actually kicking off for the 133rd time in their history to get any further closure on Parsons being elsewhere, why wait until then to discuss the return the Cowboys got?
Although Jerry Jones was quick to say that the entire return package of Kenny Clark and two first-round picks can all help the Cowboys now, as those picks can be in-season trade chips, the only player actually ready to play for the Dallas Cowboys as a result of Micah Parsons no longer being a Dallas Cowboy is Kenny Clark. How does this help the Cowboys?
For starters, this move is a very late continuation of something the Cowboys front office was actually praised for at the beginning of free agency. None of their wheeling and dealing involved trading away one of the best pass rushers in the sport, but the very fact the Cowboys were willing to do any wheeling and dealing to improve their roster was seen as progress. Not only that, but they did so at positions of need that backed up the style of football their new coaching staff desires. They fortified positions that had caused them to slip from first to third in the division due to a lack of depth, using all waves of free agency, trades, and of course the draft to do so. For the first time in a long time, the Cowboys front office earned praise this offseason for seemingly having a better plan towards the actual football part of their operation.
The defensive tackle position did not go untouched during this process, but like clockwork, the Cowboys arrived where we are now at the dawn of a new season with a depth chart at DT that is woefully thin. For a team that’s thrown their hands up in the air and wondered why they struggle to defend the run, addressing every other position group in an effort to do so, defensive tackle has still somehow gone under the radar despite run defense being their main task.
The very idea of trading Parsons, and all the extra circumstances surrounding it, will have the scales tipped towards the Cowboys losing this trade in the eyes of the football world for quite a while, but they were at least intelligent in knowing what to look for in a return. In the most extreme and borderline toxic way possible, the Cowboys showed they can step out of their comfort zone to address a position of need they’ve ignored for too long prior to this. Kenny Clark will join Osa Odighizuwa, Perrion Winfrey, Solomon Thomas, Mazi Smith, and Jay Toia in the Cowboys defensive tackle room. Second-year player Marshawn Kneeland is also capable of lining up on the interior in a pinch.
On paper, this DT group gives the Cowboys a much better chance to stand up against the run than it did before a three-time Pro Bowler and yet another former first-round pick joined the team. The Cowboys also did well defending the outside run this preseason, thanks in large part to their edge players and linebackers staying in position. Although they lost a massive amount of play-making ability off the edge by shipping away Parsons, the Cowboys stance here is that they have strength in numbers at defensive end and that they did a sound thing by trading away from a position of perceived strength to address a perceived weakness.
In a vacuum, this is great football operations 101, but we aren’t exactly talking about operating in a vacuum here. We’re talking about a reality where Micah Parsons no longer plays for the Cowboys, and that is a reality that’s allowed to sting either a little or a lot, depending on who you ask. The Cowboys have sent the message through their roster construction before that they favor their own draft picks, but this year it was as clear as ever.
Players like Saahdiq Charles and Darius Harris were somewhat surprising roster cuts, but lost out to draft picks like rookies Ajani Cornelius and Shemar James. The Cowboys last two second-round picks have also been spent at defensive end. It should come as no surprise if the team gets comfortable touting both Kneeland and Donovan Ezeiruaku as reasons to feel optimistic about not having Parsons off the edge anymore. Pairing Clark with Winfrey and Odighizuwa to generate an interior pass rush should also be part of this hastily thrown together plan.
The edge pass rush unit that defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus will have at his disposal will also include Sam Williams, James Houston, and Dante Fowler. Without Parsons in the equation, the Cowboys defense has shifted in the blink of an eye.
Prior to the trade, this was seen as a defense that would have to do anything it took to get opposing offenses behind the sticks, stopping early down runs being the biggest challenge here, to create pass rush situations for Parsons and teammates to be most effective. Now without the true pass rush specialist in Parsons, who did not always take an interest to playing the run or being alignment sound, this is a defense with far less big-play potential, but the chance to be more stiff on an every down and neutral basis. Their newest face in Clark is a player that hasn’t missed a start in three years, an anchor of the Packers defensive fronts.
Clark became the player opponents would look to create movement against inside in their blocking scheme, but his low pad level, quick hands, and bull rush strength regularly made this difficult. Clark can line up in a variety of stances, something the Cowboys often ask their DTs to do no matter if they are playing the run or the pass, and has potential to get to the quarterback with a career high 7.5 sacks in 2023.
Last season, the Packers defense saw 426 rushing attempts against them. Clark was on the field for 274 (64%) of them, helping the Packers finish as the third best defense in yards per rush against, with less than half a yard separating them from the Baltimore Ravens in the top spot. This is the type of player that can eat up snaps and help the entire depth chart settle into their roles around him at defensive tackle for the Cowboys now.
While it is a Marvel comic book level stretch to say the Cowboys defense got better on Thursday by trading away Micah Parsons, it may not be such a stretch to say they got more sound. The Cowboys front office has said in a million different ways since the beginning of August that they had opportunities to pay Parsons if they wanted to. The usual and predictable chatter that followed from the front office trying to drag the perception on Parsons down for the sake of lowering this price tag came with this, but in this case was also different.
Few players in recent Cowboys history have developed as public and close of a relationship with Jerry as Parsons, and through this there were rumblings that got out into the open about some of the things Jerry expressed were important to Parsons to become a true all-time great for the Cowboys. Things like leadership and work ethic were always among these rumblings. The fact we now know the Cowboys were so dead set on getting an interior defender in their return for Parsons is also a good indicator his greatness at sacking the quarterback not being matched with anything close to great run defense was a concern big enough to get to the point of a trade.
No, the Cowboys front office does not have any benefit of the doubt whatsoever that they know what to look for in fielding a championship team right now, but that doesn’t make it any less true all of the recent teams they’ve put in the playoffs have been torn through on the ground by their opponents. Their most recent opponent in this regard was Parsons’ new team the Packers, who came to AT&T Stadium and ran for 143 yards and three touchdowns to knock the Cowboys out of the 2023 playoffs 48-32 (a final score that reads much, much more generously than the game actually unfolded).
Parsons had one tackle in this game, and will end his career in Dallas having just one sack in the playoffs. It came on the final drive of the game for a Buccaneers team that trailed the Cowboys by two scores already in desperation mode. For reasons not entirely within his control, a player that often spoke about understanding the high bar to clear to be considered a franchise great in Dallas compared to elsewhere fell drastically short of ever making even a single truly memorable and lasting play in the postseason games that matter the most.
The answer to why the Cowboys can’t at least get in these playoff games more often, and better yet win them, cannot and will never be as simple as “Jerry Jones”. Through a lifetime in the public eye of football, Jerry Jones has never suited up and taken a single snap for a Cowboys team that’s won or lost a big game. The Cowboys have more than enough evidence on their side to say that being a better defensive team, starting from the inside out up front to win the line of scrimmage, is something that would in fact help them in these games they’ve struggled to be in.
Dallas cannot be built to consistently win football games without prioritizing defensive tackles, ends and linebackers. They’ve done the work at DE and LB through the draft and free agency, with even more first-round picks at their disposal now, and also have a new plus starter at DT. The fact that gaining a quality tackle took losing a player as dominant at times as Parsons is still confusing, frustrating, sad, and all of the above. The drama of a Dallas Cowboys offseason has once again boiled over until the waking hours of the start to a new season, but with the season comes the chance to win games and make this unnecessary noise go away.
The Cowboys defense, now with Clark instead of Parsons, will be put to the test immediately by the Eagles, in a week one game where the stakes feel higher than ever thanks to this latest gamble by the front office. The football side of this move is quite literally the only thing the Cowboys front office has to save themselves from an all-time blunder, making an already juicy matchup between Clark and the new-look Cowboys defensive line against the stout Eagles offensive line even more layered.
