The Dallas Cowboys are a soap opera, 365 days a year.
That is not an opinion. That is a direct quote. Not from a member of the media, but their owner – who also happens to be their general manager and president.
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“When it gets slow,” Jerry Jones told reporters earlier this month, “I’ll stir it up”.
“I do believe if we’re not being looked at, then I’ll do my part to get us looked at.”
Jones certainly did his part last week and he definitely stirred up not just his own fan base but the entire NFL when he traded Micah Parsons, a two-time All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowler.
He didn’t just trade Parsons either. He sent him to the Packers. An NFC rival. The team that ended their seasons in 2014, 2016 and 2023.
But you have to remember this is the same man who when asked by The Athletic why he doesn’t hire a general manager told the publication that he “likes the pain”.
There has been plenty of it over the last three decades for a team that has now gone 29 years without a conference title game appearance – the third-longest drought in the NFL and longest in the NFC.
Yet even this trade seemed a departure from Jones’ usual antics. Sure, he has long been the type to chase the headlines. To seek out the spotlight instead of shying away from it – both good and bad.
But trading away the face of the franchise? That didn’t seem likely, no matter how long the contract saga with Parsons dragged out. No matter how public he made it.
Again, all it meant was just more eyes on the Dallas Cowboys and more eyes on Jerry Jones to see what his next move would be, even though most people seemed to know what to expect.
After all, this kind of situation had played out before. He’d waited to pay Dak Prescott and his quarterback’s star receiver CeeDee Lamb. Then there was Zack Martin’s three-week holdout. Ezekiel Elliott had to wait until the week of the season opener in 2019 for his new deal. Even Dez Bryant’s patience was pushed in 2015.
“He’s (Jones) a master marketer,” as Jason Garrett put it on ‘The Dan Patrick Show’ in late July.
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But still, the former Cowboys coach expected Jones to get a deal done with his superstar pass rusher.
“I don’t think that’s (the attention) the driving motivation, because if it wasn’t Micah Parsons, it would be something else with the Cowboys,” Garrett added.
“ESPN always leads with the Cowboys, whatever the situation is. So, I don’t think that’s a driving force for him. Maybe it’s a byproduct of the approach he’s taking, but he typically likes to wait on these things.”
And so, the NFL world waited for that scheduled tweet from Adam Schefter, right as the pre-season games were drawing to a close and the season proper was on the horizon.
Instead, ESPN’s NFL insider dropped news that catapulted Green Bay into Super Bowl contention and cast doubt over what direction Dallas – ‘America’s team’ – was even going in.
Then came the headlines. The talking heads. That press conference. The one where Jones, once again the main character of his self-created soap opera, created even more headlines.
First, he repeatedly referred to Micah as Michael. Four times to be exact. He even smiled and thanked the media for writing the headline that he hadn’t planned to trade Parsons, explaining it was part of his negotiation tactics.
So, what did those negotiation tactics end up getting him? Well, two future first-round picks and Packers defensive tackle Kenny Clark.
It isn’t a terrible return but it certainly isn’t the kind of offer to make you rush to trade away the heart of your franchise.
But, according to Jones, stopping the run was a priority for Dallas and Clark would be able to help the Cowboys address that glaring weakness in their defence, even if it meant giving up a caliber of pass rusher in Parsons who opposition teams actually have to game plan for.
Philadelphia Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata wasn’t the only one in the NFC East breathing a sigh of relief after news of the trade came through. He was just honest enough to admit it.
As for the draft picks, which project to be late given the position Green Bay is in to contend for the next few years, well Jones left the door open to use those picks to trade for pieces that could improve the roster right now.
Otherwise?
“Those draft picks could get us Pro-Bowl type players,” he said.
Yep, that’s right. As if the Family Guy ‘Mystery Box’ memes circulating the internet in the wake of the trade weren’t enough, Jones literally proved how painfully accurate they were with that one quote.
The reaction across the league was damning. One article from CBS provided a snapshot and while there were a few executives around the NFL who were willing to hear the Cowboys out, the majority were like one NFC North personnel staffer who compared it to the Mavericks trading Luka Doncic.
“Luka trade 2.0,” that staffer told CBS.
“In-conference is crazy. Shows how much Jerry’s ego was involved. Those first-round picks aren’t worth much because Green Bay should be a playoff contender the next few years. You don’t trade a generational player, especially one who’s not a criminal and has no off-field issues. It’s malpractice.”
“I’m happy for (Dallas Mavericks GM) Nico Harrison! This might be the worst trade ever! Clark is 29 and the two first rounders don’t help you until (starting) next year!” added an AFC outside linebackers coach.
The response from the NFL media, and those headlines Jones so desperately chases, wasn’t much different.
ESPN’s Mina Kimes is the furthest thing from a hot-take merchant, and so the fact even she said on the network that she believes this will “go down as one of the biggest mistakes in NFL history” speaks volumes.
“Players like Micah Parsons don’t get traded,” she said.
“… Micah Parsons is the kind of player you wait an entire generation to draft. He is a future Hall of Famer. He is one of the two or three best defensive players in all of football.
“The only case in which I think it would be defensible to trade a player like that is if you don’t have a quarterback and you’re a rebuilding team and you’re going to be bad anyways.
“But that’s not what Dallas was. Nothing about this is logical to me. I have yet to hear a coherent football defense for it, and it seems like it was a case of hurt feelings that spiraled out of control.”
Her colleague at ESPN, former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky, also said it will “go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the organisation” and declared “the allure of the star feels gone”.
“I think the shine for the Cowboys is gone because of this,” he said on ‘Get Up’.
“When I grew up, no one left the Dallas Cowboys. Nobody. The fact that this was Micah initiating, I don’t want to be here anymore — the allure of the star feels gone.”
As for Jones, Orlovsky said he “100 per cent loss” the negotiation, calling it “one of the worst days in the Cowboys since Jerry Jones has owned them”.
The Cowboys had an opportunity to extend Parsons before the start of the 2024-25 season, when he claimed his agent David Mulugheta reached out to the team in the hopes of striking an early deal on an extension only to be told Dallas was not interested in starting negotiations yet.
“I was ok with that (and) didn’t complain,” Parsons wrote in the statement he released last month when he requested a trade.
So, the Cowboys instead picked up the fifth year on his rookie contract and Parsons played out the year in Dallas before speaking with Jones in March – and this is where there was a disconnect between the two sides.
Parsons claimed those talks were just conversations, writing that he told the Cowboys his agent would reach out, “thinking this would get things done”.
Dallas, on the other hand, believed the conversations between Parsons and Jones were effectively negotiations and that a deal was in place.
“My agent of course told him that wasn’t the case and also reached out to Stephen Jones,” Parsons wrote.
The team, according to Parsons, “decided to go silent” and then refused to speak with his agent.
“Up to today the team has not had a single conversation with my agent about a contract,” Parsons wrote last month in his trade request.
“I no longer want to be held to close door negotiations without my agent present. I no longer want shots taken at me for getting injured while laying it on the line for the organization, our fans and my teammates. I no longer want narratives created and spread to the media about me.”
As for Jones’ version of events, he said he and Parsons agreed to terms in their March meeting on an extension that would have made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in terms of guaranteed money in NFL history.
Jones claimed that when he tried to send Mulugheta the details, he declined and instead wanted to continue negotiating terms.
Mulugheta, appearing on ESPN’s First Take this week, confirmed that the Cowboys were willing to make Parsons the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at one point in the summer, but only in terms of average annual value.
He also refuted the Cowboys’ claims about the conversations Parsons had with Jones, emphasising “at no point did Micah believe he was negotiating a contract.”
“To expect somebody like Micah Parsons to be one of the best defenders in the NFL and always a great lawyer when it comes to contracts is unfair,” Mulugheta added.
Wherever the truth may lie, Parsons described the last four months as the “hardest of my life” in his introductory press conference after being dealt to the Packers, admitting despite everything that happened he still didn’t think he would be traded.
“But that’s the harsh reality,” he added.
And the harsh reality for the Cowboys is that as much as Jones confidently told reporters last summer that he was “all-in”, Dallas now is even further away from Super Bowl contention than it was back then.
Those two words rang hollow at the time as the Cowboys ran out a wide receiver room with Lamb and not much else, while the run game – even if Rico Dowdle exceeded expectations – was uninspiring at best.
The run defence was a major issue all season and while trading for Clark is a start, it doesn’t get much tougher than Friday morning’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
It is the first game of the new season and that means everyone will be watching. Jones wouldn’t want it any other way.
But after talking so openly about the run defence being a “big concern” and reason for the Parsons trade, even if unfair it is hard not to think those words will also ring hollow when Saquon Barkley is breaking off big run after big run behind that vaunted Philadelphia offensive line.
This trade shouldn’t be judged on one game alone. But that’s often how the mainstream media, which Jones loves to play up to so much, works.
And even if Jones and the Cowboys are given more leeway beyond Friday’s result, The Athletic’s Michael Silver wrote that “the hard, cold truth is that, unless and until the Cowboys win another Super Bowl, this deal will be framed as a resounding defeat”.
“Jones, for all the attention being generated by his recently dropped Netflix docuseries, has to feel a bit jealous,” Silver later added.
“The bottom line is this: The Gambler just got rid of one of the league’s best players, a young man seemingly entering the prime of his career, because of the owner’s own flaws: stubbornness, a lack of urgency, and miscalculations of his adversaries and of the market.
“As a result, Green Bay just got glitzier — and America’s Team appears pretty damn far from Super.”
Andscape’s Justin Tinsley, meanwhile, wrote that the “only more asinine decision” that trading away Parsons “at the peak of his powers” was splitting with head coach Jimmy Johnson after back-to-back Super Bowl wins.
“Both were self-inflicted. Both were rooted in Jones’ mythical ego. Both shook the NFL universe to its core. And both left the fanbase wondering where the hell it goes from here,” Tinsley added.
So, where do the Cowboys go from here?
Well, to start with, Lincoln Financial Field and on Friday morning, when the reigning champion Philadelphia Eagles unveil their Super Bowl LIX banner, Jones will be forced to confront the reality of what this franchise could have been.
A reminder of how far ‘America’s Team’ has fallen.
How will the Cowboys fare in their first game without Micah Parsons? You can catch the Dallas vs Philadelphia season-opener on Friday morning and an average 6 games per week along with every game of the NFL Postseason, LIVE with ESPN on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
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