There are three numbers the Packers needed to settle regarding Micah Parsons.
The first was the number of draft picks they’d be sending to the Dallas Cowboys to get him to Green Bay. That turned out to be two, both first rounders, in addition to Kenny Clark.
The next was the compensation for Parsons himself. That number turned out to be $188 million, spread over four seasons.
The final number is the most specific: what number the Packers’ newly acquired edge rusher will wear on the field. And that,
in a way, might be the hardest one to solve.
Parsons has worn number 11 each of his four seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and throughout his career at Penn State. But that number is currently worn by Jayden Reed, complicating at least one, relatively small part of Parsons’ arrival in Green Bay.
So how do you solve that problem? What number should Parsons wear?
It’s simple, and we can actually solve three issues at once.
Parsons should wear number 11 and the Packers should assign number 1 to Jayden Reed.
Parsons gets to wear the number he’s worn throughout his NFL career. This is a quick and easy solution to allow the Packers’ highest-profile acquisition in basically forever to keep a part of his personal brand intact. He’s been number 11 for a long time (though he wore 23 in high school) and now he can stay in 11 with the Packers.
There would be a cost to reassigning Reed, but this process actually rights a small historical wrong. Reed, who wore 1 at Michigan State, was initially assigned that digit when the Packers drafted him in 2023. There was even a now-deleted Twitter post announcing he’d wear the number in Green Bay before the team reversed course and put Reed in 11.
That’s because the number 1 is retired for Curly Lambeau, the “first citizen” of Packers history. Well, unofficially, that is. There are actually only six officially retired numbers in Green Bay: 3 for Tony Canadeo, 4 for Brett Favre, 14 for Don Hutson, 15 for Bart Starr, 66 for Ray Nitschke, and 92 for Reggie White. Now-departed Packers president Mark Murphy has also indicated that the team will retire the number 12 for Aaron Rodgers at some point, and that seems like a no brainer.
But the number 1 hasn’t been officially issued to a player since Lambeau himself (though players like Alex Gillett have worn it in preseason), and number 5 was fairly pointedly retired by Vince Lombardi in a press conference, though the team, for whatever reason, didn’t canonize Lombardi’s decision. Don Majkowski even wore it in the 1980s!
But that’s why this moment is important. The Packers have a chance to decide one way or another on a number that’s been in demand, and I think they should issue number 1.
Numbers are either retired or they’re not. Unofficial retirements shouldn’t count, and Lambeau has already been honored by the Packers in two pretty significant ways. They named an entire stadium after him, then built the man a giant statue outside of that stadium. Isn’t that enough? Why does he need to have a number off limits, too?
There’s nobody alive who even saw Lambeau play. There’s no reason the Packers can’t break a little number logjam by opening up a number for a player whose grandparents probably weren’t even alive for Lambeau’s playing days.
Put Parsons in 11, put Reed in 1, and honor Lambeau’s contributions to the Packers in other ways.
