Speaking in the immediate wake of sending elite pass rusher Micah Parsons to Green Bay, Dallas Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones appeared conflicted, admitting how much he liked the player but admitting that his team is probably better off now that he’s gone.

Jones has made no secret of how much he liked and admired Parsons as a person and player, but the protracted contract negotiations that have dragged on from the end of the 2024 campaign eventually drove an agent-shaped wedge between them, resulting in the biggest shock of the preseason — and a move that could just as easily blow up in Jones’ face as work in his favour.

“First of all, I want to tell you that I really like Micah,” Jones told a hastily-arranged press conference at Cowboys headquarters. “I appreciate the four years that we’ve had him here. He’s a great player — and there’s no question that I could have signed him. But we all know that, to have agreements, all parties have to agree. I did make Micah an offer. It wasn’t acceptable, and I honour the fact that it wasn’t done in the way that he wanted to do it, through an agent. There’s not an ounce of vindictiveness, and no bad feelings on my part about the fact that we didn’t come together for an agreement.

“If you’re asking if I regret [anything], no, I don’t regret that at all. I’m very, very excited about the prospects of what we’ve done for the Cowboys here. I had total control over being able to have it the other way. So, I’m excited. We got what we wanted.”

The Cowboys’ fanbase had appeared divided on the issue prior to the trade, with those backing Parsons calling on the team to pay him what he was worth — a figure in the region of those awarded to Myles Garrett and T.J. Watt in recent months — while others began to see the former Penn State star as a distraction, believing that the team would be better off moving on. The trade netted Dallas first-round picks in both the 2026 and 2027 NFL Drafts, as well as nose tackle Kenny Clark, and Jones is adamant that the haul can be beneficial in a number of ways.

“This was a move to get us successful in the playoffs,” he reasoned. “This was a move to be better on defense, at stopping the run. This was a move to, if we get behind, to not be run on. 
It was a deliberate move, a well thought out move to make this happen.”

The recognition that Dallas has been awful against the run in recent seasons is welcome from an owner many fans believe is out of touch with the realities facing his team — exacerbated by an under-cooked run game not being addressed with high draft picks — but Jones was clear in his assessment that the arrival of a veteran interior D-lineman like Clark, regardless of the extra picks that came with him, can outweigh the loss of one of the league’s most devastating pass rushers.

“Kenny Clark was a big part of this,” Cowboys EVP Stephen Jones, sitting alongside his father, interjected. “A part of winning right now. We hadn’t been able to win the big game in the playoffs, and we think it is a direct connection to not being able to stop the run — and we think Kenny Clark is gonna be a big piece to that. We felt like, because of our depth on the edge, as well as the ability to scheme pressure, that we could make up for [losing] Micah — obviously he’s elite at rushing the passer, [but] we could make up for that.”

The picks, however, are also a boon in the owner’s eyes, giving the Cowboys more options than sticking with what they knew, and paying heftily for his services. Merely releasing Parsons from the wage bill ups the Cowboys’ cap room substantially and, while the extra dollars will undoubtedly come in handy, Jones would not be averse to wheeling and dealing with the extra capital either.

“We have a chance to get a minimum of three, and it could very easily be as many as five, really top players,” he suggested. “And you’ve got to look at three to five to one, over who’s going to help you win the most. It was strictly that, because it’s not only the draft picks that you have as currency, but it is the available cap room. We can take that available cap room we were going to use for Micah, and pay three to five players with that.”

Whether or not he intended it, Jones managed to drop another dig at Parsons’ injury record with in Dallas while assessing the benefit of adding more players to the roster. On the four occasions Parsons was inactive in 2024, the Cowboys went 1-3 and shipped an alarming 30.3 points per game…

“I think we’re better off having those numbers of players,” he said. “I think we’re better off from [the] attrition [standpoint]. As you know, this game is, in many cases, built around planning [for] injury and knowing that you’re gonna have injury. If you’ve got five players rather than looking at one player, you’ve got better odds of having availability.”

Dallas and Green Bay face off at AT&T Stadium in Week 4 of the coming season, giving Jones an early reality check on the Parsons deal. For now, however, it’s je ne regrette rien.