Micah Parsons trade an indictment of Jerry Jones, Cowboys | Pro Football Talk | NFL on NBC

Another day, another emergency edition of PFTPM. How could we not convene, even though it is after five o'clock Eastern time, to discuss one of the biggest trades that has happened in a very long time, an unlikely resolution to an ugly situation

that had reached the point of no return. The Cowboys apparently realizing it at some point on Thursday, it sounds like things happened quickly. I checked in yesterday on this potential Green Bay Packers interest in Micah Parsons,

Cowboys linebacker. Now Packers linebacker, it's still weird to say it. It's going to be even weirder to see it. And I was told that the interest was real, but it wasn't as far along as the smoke that was on social media would indicate. Well, the past 24 hours took things up a few notches and the deal got done. We first got the indication earlier in the afternoon when

ESPN reported that for the first time the Cowboys are willing to listen to the calls they had been getting about Michael Parsons. So one day short of four weeks after he asked to be traded he gets his wish and he never rescinded it and it always felt real and the Cowboys misplayed it every step of the way. Let's make no mistake about it. Let's call it what it is. This is a colossal screw-up by the Dallas Cowboys.

The draft is a lottery, even without a draft lottery. Every player that you select is a scratch-off ticket. And when you scratch off a winner, unlike receiving many millions, you eventually have the privilege of paying many millions to keep the player. But that's the idea. Draft, develop, and reward the best players. You don't trade them. You don't trade them in for more lottery tickets

and hope you scratch off another winner. That's not how a properly functioning football team operates. And right now, the Dallas Cowboys are not a properly functioning football team by virtue of the fact that they have bungled yet another negotiation with a key young player in a colossal way. By dragging their feet and making excuses and violating the CBA and playing games, they eventually pissed off one of the best defensive players in football

And now he's gone How about them Cowboys It really is amazing and it's an indictment of Jerry Jones That's all we can say it is an indictment of

The owner and GM of the Dallas Cowboys, the man who gave himself the job when he bought the team. If you watch the excellent Netflix docuseries, they asked him at the introductory press conference in 1989, what do you want to do? And he pointed to Tech Sram and he said, I want his job. Worked well until it didn't. The Cowboys built their Super Bowl champion that won three Lombardi trophies in four years

in the days before the salary cap. What have they done since the salary cap made it harder to just buy whatever player you want to buy and required you to make good decisions about how you divide the pie? You're going to have to divide the pie. You're gonna have to divide the pie. You're gonna have to pay star players. It's a good problem to have,

but they have constantly made mistakes. They waited too long to pay Dak Prescott twice. They painted themselves into a corner with Dak twice. They're paying him 60 million a year currently, and he's not a $60 million a year quarterback. I love him, but he's not a $60 million a year quarterback. I love him, but he's not.

Well, he is because the Cowboys misplayed their hand. Dak always sat back and waited and allowed them to do it. Dak is the classic example of the old saying, when your enemy is dancing near the edge of the cliff, don't throw them a lifeline. Let them keep dancing, or something like that.

They blew the Ezekiel Elliot contract. They pay too much, they wait too long. And in this case, they pissed off the first hold in they ever had. They knew how to deal with a holdout. Eventually you blink and you pay the guy

what you should have paid him before he held out. They just had a bad clock. They wait too long to go to their bottom line. With Micah, they had to hold in and they didn't know how to handle it. And they were daring him to play under his fifth year option. And they thought they could get away with it. They thought they could delay a trade. I don't know this,

but I believe it based on all the circumstances. They thought they could delay a trade until after the season because whatever they're getting and so far, and the information's coming in as I do this, two first round picks and maybe more. Unless they're getting a player who's going to come in

and help the 2025 Dallas Cowboys, they are operating at a net loss now. They have lost one of their best players, arguably the best player on the entire roster, forever, unless they trade for him at some point down the road. 2025 season is thrown completely off course for the Cowboys. Whatever hope, whatever promise, whatever potential was there. And there's reason to believe any team could be a playoff team.

Seven playoff teams per conference, 17 regular season games, any team can make it. The Cowboys have now tied a hand behind their back by doing this now. I mean, if you're gonna trade Michael Parsons, you trade him before the draft, in 25.

So at least you get the first round pick, the first first round pick now, you get a player who's gonna help you now. It really is amazing. I'm flabbergasted that the Cowboys would screw this up so badly,

and they deserve whatever criticism they get. And I know Jerry loves publicity, talk about the Cowboys, he doesn't care as long as we're talking about the Cowboys. This is one time where you probably wish you weren't associated with such a colossal mistake and such a tremendous mishandling of the situation.

Now, and let's take it another level farther. Why would you trade him in the conference? You don't just compete with the Eagles, Giants, and Commanders. If you don't win the division and the Packers don't win the division,

guess who you're competing with for a wild card spot? The Packers.

And if you do win the spot, the Packers.

And if you do win the division and the Packers win the division, guess who you're competing with for the highest possible spot in the playoff tree? The Packers. Oh, and guess who you're welcoming to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas?

Week four, Sunday night. Hoo boy, on NBC and Peacock, the Packers. Michael Parsons is gone, but he will be back soon. He'll be back in a month, a month to the day. One month from tonight, Michael Parsons and the Green Bay Packers will play the Cowboys in Dallas on NBC and Peacock.

I got a weird feeling. I don't know this because we rarely go on the road for regular season games. I got a weird feeling we're going to go to that one, or at least part of the crew will. Anyway, what a day, what a development,

what a mistake by the Cowboys. Now, let's flip it over to the Green Bay Packers. This is not your father's Green Bay Packers. These are not the draft and develop Green Bay Packers. Ed Policy, the new president and CEO of the team, talk about putting your fingerprint on the franchise quickly. Holy cow. Maybe the Packers wouldn't have made the trade under Mark Murphy as he

was exiting. Because maybe Mark Murphy wouldn't have wanted to hamstring policy by making that decision and making that move as policy was coming through the door. Of course, policy worked there already. He'd be on board with it. You wouldn't do it without him wanting you to do it.

So I'm thinking out loud as I say that, that wouldn't have been an impediment. And it works out better for the Packers. They got to use their first round pick on Matthew Golden, a receiver they really needed, and they get Michael Parsons, and they kick the compensation to next year. And it'll probably be a low pick. That's what I said from the get-go. From the moment that Michael Parsons has to be traded, Ravens, Bills, get your asses on the phone. If you are serious about competing with the Chiefs,

call the Cowboys and make this happen. Cause if it's two first round picks, they're going to be late first round picks. They're already going to be late first round picks. Could be number 31 or 32. It's amazing. So the Packers get Micah Parsons. The Packers shake up the balance of power in the NFC North.

Maybe they're now the favorites to win the division. It'll be interesting to see how the market moves for the odds for the NFC North champion. I have a feeling there's going to be a rush of bets that will make the Packers the favorites. Why wouldn't they be? Now, how hard is it to plug and play a pass rusher? Not all that hard.

They'll make it happen. And they really wanted it because, oh, they're paying him. Now, the initial number that's out there is 47 million per year new money average. We'll see how real it is. Maybe it's real.

Maybe it's real and spectacular. I thought he'd give 45, 47. Are you kidding me? It just shows you how much teams value this guy. This, I want to make it about the Packers, but this just shows how idiotic the Cowboys are.

There was a team out there willing to pay 47 million a year, new money average, and who knows, but it's a lot, and the numbers are going to be huge, and he's going to be the highest paid non-quarterback in the NFL, and he may set a bar that others will have a hard time catching, but the Packers are willing to do it and give up the draft compensation.

And those first-round picks, high or low, wherever they fall, they are valuable because you get players cheap. And maybe cheap is the operative word here, because at his core and he's not cheap in his lifestyle he's got that that floating aircraft carrier that looks like a Ritz-Carlton hotel on the inside the Jerry Jones super yacht he spared no expense when he built a stadium but he's cheap when it comes to paying his players he's stubborn he's

short-sighted and and he's cheap. I think it's safe to say the Cowboys won't be going back to the NFC Championship this year. I think it's safe to say it's going to hit 30. Let's go ahead and put him down for a 30. Years without making it to the NFC Championship.

If they would have done it before the draft, maybe you could rebuild things. This really is stunning. I'm processing it as you are. Well, you'll probably see this video after you've had a chance to process it. The news happened literally minutes before I started taping the video. Unbelievable. What a mess by the Cowboys, and what a coup for the Packers. Why weren't the Bills, the Ravens, the Chargers, the Broncos burning up the phone lines?

And why weren't the Cowboys willing to take maybe a little less to get him the hell out of the conference? Are you that confident that he's not as good as you think or as we think? Are you that willing to set up an apples to apples competition with a team that's now

going to be led defensively by such a great player? Man, makes the season spicy. My only regret, and I raised the question a couple of times this week on PFT Live, Chris Sims and I will be at Lincoln Financial Field next week working, both in the morning for PFT Live, then for the joint Chris Sims Unbuttoned PFT PM Megapix podcast,

then for the Cowboys Eagles game. I raised the question, is Micah even gonna be there? Guess what?

He won't be.

He'll play the Eagles later in the year at Green Bay. Go ahead and take a look at the Packers schedule. Man, everything has gotten more interesting, including that week eight game, Packers at Steelers. In come the Packers to face their former quarterback, and they got Michael Parsons with them to chase him around. Wow. You know, the Cowboys are going to drive interest no matter what. And people are going to tune in for Cowboys games, even for the train wreck factor. If you love him, if you hate him, if you just want to watch a good mess on TV, you watch the Cowboys,

the Cowboys Chiefs game on Thanksgiving is going to be the most watched regular season game of all time. So the Cowboys are always going to be interesting. This is good for the NFL because now it makes other games. Holy shit, right out of the gates, week one, Lions Packers. How about that 425 Eastern? I don't know that Michael Parsons is gonna play in that game or if he does, how much, and that's where I'll leave it. It would have been better for the Packers to get him sooner.

It would have been better for the Packers to have enough time to get him ready. Now they have a few extra days than the Cowboys would have had if he'd shown up today. They have a weekend, three days to get him ready for week one. And I got a feeling,

call me a conspiracy theorist, I got a feeling his back's fine. I got a feeling, and it'll be interesting to see the initial injury report next week, if they put him on as back.

Full participation in practice, back. Status for Sunday questionable, back. Or if they just don't put him on at all.

We knew what was going on. We knew the game that was being played here. Now, if the goal was to get a contract from the Cowboys, Parsons should have held out. If the goal was to get out of Dallas, he played it the right way. What an amazing development. How about them Packers? Great job by Green Bay.

Great job by Ed Policy. Great job by Brian Gutekunst, Matt LaFleur, head coach of the team, probably pinching himself right now. The same way Jerry Jones said he was pinching himself when he got Joe Milton. You think if Jerry Jones pinched himself

when he got Joe Milton, what's Jerry Jones doing to himself now that he's lost Micah Parsons? But I'm sure Jerry would say he's right. He did the right thing. He did the right thing. He did the smart thing. He's the guy who knows how to put a championship team together because 36 years ago, Jimmy Johnson did. With that, we'll have more to say about this on Friday morning's edition of PFT Live. Michael Hawley will join me.

And so much for getting that guy to buy 100 copies of Big Shield. If I didn't talk about Cowboys at least one show the rest of the week, gonna be hard tomorrow to not talk about the Cowboys. We'll be talking a lot about the Cowboys. I have a feeling throughout the season

because this really has made the looming 2025 campaign even more exciting than it already was. Thanks for some of your time. Thanks for some of your time. See you tomorrow morning, bright and early, 7 a.m. Eastern, Peacock, Sirius XM 85 for PFT Live.