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Packers' Micah Parsons not upset Cowboys won't recognize his return
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Packers’ Micah Parsons not upset Cowboys won’t recognize his return

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  • Rob DemovskySep 24, 2025, 05:52 PM ET

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      Rob Demovsky is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Green Bay Packers. He has covered the Packers since 1997 and joined ESPN in 2013. Demovsky is a two-time Wisconsin Sportswriter of the Year as selected by the NSSA.

GREEN BAY, Wis. — No tribute, no problem.

That’s how Micah Parsons said he feels about his former team not doing anything to recognize his return to Dallas as a member of the Green Bay Packers to play his old team, the Cowboys, on Sunday night.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said this week that the team has no plans to honor Parsons, who played four seasons for the Cowboys before he was traded to the Packers shortly before the season following a contract dispute.

“No, there’s a lot of things I can consider disrespectful throughout this process, but I wouldn’t say the tribute is one of them,” Parsons said Wednesday. “I would say, I just think there’s hard feelings maybe there for them. But for me, I’m happy where I’m at and we got a really good football team, so I guess I can [receive] my tribute in a win, I hope.”

Sunday will be the first time Micah Parsons plays at AT&T Stadium without the Cowboys star on his uniform. John Fisher/Getty Images

Parsons also said he’s not concerned about how he will be received by Cowboys fans on Sunday.

“You know, I think Dallas loves me,” Parsons said. “I think they’re going to give me a good round of applause. There’s no hard feelings there, at least from me, and I think it’s going to be, like I said, it’s going to be a great atmosphere.”

While Parsons still has plenty of friends and family in the Dallas area, he did not have any trouble getting tickets because he still has his suite at AT&T Stadium. He had already booked it for the 2025 season long before he ever thought he would be playing elsewhere.

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“No refunds,” said Parsons, who said he tried to get Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark, who went to Dallas in the trade, to rent the suite from him.

“The suite’s going to be packed out for sure,” Parsons said. “Trust me, I’ve got a big suite.”

Since his arrival, Parsons is tied for first in the NFL with 14 quarterback pressures, according to ESPN Research, and 1.5 sacks through three games. The Packers rank third in total defense.

The Packers (2-1) are coming off a loss to the Cleveland Browns in a game that they led by 10 points in the fourth quarter. That has helped the Packers stay focused on bouncing back rather than on Parsons’ return to Dallas.

“I don’t know what that feeling is like — going back to obviously the organization you played for, the team that drafted you — but I’m sure it’s probably a weird feeling for him,” Packers quarterback Jordan Love said. “But for the rest of us, just focus on another week for going 1-0.”



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NFL Week 2: Wild comeback wins for Cowboys, Colts, Bengals
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NFL Week 2: Wild comeback wins for Cowboys, Colts, Bengals

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  • Bill BarnwellSep 15, 2025, 08:45 AM ET

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      Bill Barnwell is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. He analyzes football on and off the field like no one else on the planet, writing about in-season X’s and O’s, offseason transactions and so much more.

      He is the host of the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, with episodes released weekly. Barnwell joined ESPN in 2011 as a staff writer at Grantland.

You certainly can’t say it was a boring Sunday. While there were a few blowout victories here and there, we saw seven of the 12 games Sunday decided by seven points or fewer. Outside of the 49ers, who firmly shut the door on the Saints to seal up their second consecutive close victory on the road to start the season, none of those wins felt resounding.

Three teams pulled off comebacks by scoring in the final two minutes of regulation or overtime. The Cowboys topped the Giants, the Bengals beat the Jaguars and the Colts pulled out a last-second victory over the Broncos.

I’m going to break down those three games. What happened? How did those teams fuel their comebacks? Are these types of performances sustainable? And should we feel concerned about the three losers of those games?

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Let’s begin in Dallas, where the Cowboys needed help from one of the superstars it still has to overcome the absence of the one it traded away. (And if you want to read more about the Giants’ side of things, come back Thursday, when I’ll have my annual look at the league’s 0-2 teams and how they’re essentially all about to suit up for playoff games in Week 3. It’ll be the Chiefs’ first appearance in that column, too.)

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Demoted to the 1 p.m. ET window after seemingly decades of being a nationally televised game between two of the league’s most storied franchises, the Cowboys and Giants responded with their own version of last week’s Ravens-Bills game. After a Dak Prescott interception started the second half and the Giants responded by stalling out in the red zone and turning the ball over on downs, these two teams scored on nine of the remaining 10 possessions in regulation. The lead changed hands six times in the process before the Cowboys finally took advantage of an inexplicable Russell Wilson interception in overtime to set up Brandon Aubrey for a 46-yard field goal to win the game.

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It was Aubrey’s 64-yard field goal at the end of regulation that sent the game to overtime — a once-in-a-lifetime boot for most professionals that seems almost ho-hum for the league’s biggest leg. Cowboys kickers have a habit of bailing out coaches who mismanage end-game scenarios the moment their team crosses that fake “field goal range” line, and Brian Schottenheimer appears to be no exception.

After a Prescott pass to Jake Ferguson got the ball to midfield with nine seconds left, the Cowboys decided against using their two remaining timeouts and their $60-million-per-year quarterback to make Aubrey’s kick easier. Instead, they handed the ball off to Javonte Williams for a 3-yard gain. Aubrey came through, but that sort of late-game management won’t play well when the Cowboys try to beat stiffer competition.

The Giants weren’t supposed to give the Cowboys much trouble after an ugly loss to the Commanders in Week 1. But in what was seen as potentially his final start as a pro QB if he played poorly, Wilson put together his best start since leaving Seattle. Through the end of regulation, his 93.1 Total QBR was the second-best mark of the day and would have been the best mark he posted in a game since the 2021 season. After hitting Malik Nabers with a 48-yard touchdown pass to take the lead back for the Giants with 25 seconds to go, Wilson was 27-of-36 for 433 yards, three touchdown passes and no picks. He took just two sacks on 39 dropbacks and added a first down on a 15-yard scramble.

Of course, I’m leaving overtime out of that equation, and that appeared to be the moment when the carriage turned into a pumpkin. The Giants couldn’t score on the second drive of the extra session, when a field goal would have won them the game. When Wilson got the ball back again, he threw an incomprehensible interception under pressure.

Generously, I’d like to think that he was trying to throw the ball out of bounds in Nabers’ direction (or somewhere close enough to make it a 50-50 ball) and just missed by about 5 yards. However, there was nothing in the pass concept suggesting that Wilson was throwing somewhere Nabers was supposed to be on that play. The interception didn’t end the game — the Cowboys only took over on their own 30-yard line — but it changed the Giants’ best-case scenario from a win to a tie.

Before then, though, Wilson was having a blast picking the Cowboys apart deep. On throws traveling 20 or more yards in the air during regulation, Wilson went 7-of-10 for 264 yards and three scores. The last time somebody completed seven or more deep passes in a game was when Nick Mullens did it for the Vikings against the Lions on Christmas Eve in 2023. And frankly, while these aren’t easy throws, the only one of these completions that was really spectacular was the late TD pass to Nabers to take the lead. I say that less to disparage what Wilson did and more to just emphasize how vacant and open for business the Cowboys’ defense was downfield.

Wilson picked them apart with big throws against all kinds of coverages. The Giants hit two long completions against Tampa 2, where linebackers Kenneth Murray Jr. and Jack Sanborn couldn’t get near seam routes from Wan’Dale Robinson. Nabers torched Trevon Diggs off the line for a big gain on a fade. Wilson hit a couple more go balls against three-deep looks, where Diggs and fellow starting cornerback Kaiir Elam just couldn’t get close enough to squeeze routes. And then there were a pair of long completions against quarters coverage, where the two corners were simply going to have to run with the Giants’ wide receivers and couldn’t do so.

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0:19

Russell Wilson’s heave finds Malik Nabers for late go-ahead TD

Russell Wilson airs out a 48-yard touchdown pass to Malik Nabers to give the Giants a late lead in the fourth quarter.

Personnel-wise, perhaps none of this should be surprising. Elam wasn’t able to get on the field consistently for much of his tenure with the Bills, and he wasn’t convincing when Buffalo did get him in the lineup. Murray, another former first-rounder and fellow addition for the Cowboys this offseason, has allowed a career passer rating north of 107 in coverage. And Sanborn is in Dallas because he played under new defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus in Chicago and came cheap, with the former undrafted free agent making $1.5 million in 2025.

Diggs, meanwhile, is the microcosm of why things are so frustrating for the Cowboys on defense and unlikely to get better. He has struggled to get back to his former form after tearing his ACL early in the 2023 season, but it’s going to be even more difficult in 2025 because of what the Cowboys have done to their roster. Last season, even with Micah Parsons sidelined for four games (ankle), the Cowboys were sixth in pressure rate and second in sack rate. In fact, Dallas led the league in both categories across Parsons’ four years with the organization before his recent trade to Green Bay.

Without Parsons, the Cowboys are still generating pressures, but the sacks haven’t come. They rank sixth in pressure rate but just 19th in sack rate, and that has come against two of the most sack-friendly quarterbacks in football in Wilson and Jalen Hurts. Against pressure, Wilson was 6-of-10 for 99 yards and a touchdown throw before the overtime interception.

When Diggs and currently injured cornerback DaRon Bland were at their best during the Dan Quinn days in Dallas, the presence and even the threat of Parsons influenced what opposing coordinators were comfortable calling. It was easier for two of the league’s most aggressive corners to sit on routes, trusting that Parsons would get home before any receiver could get past them. And while that still led to some big plays and long completions, Diggs and Bland were able to more than make up for the missteps with league-leading interception totals.

Now, without that reliable pass rush, the cornerbacks can’t sit on routes at the sticks and trust that the ball is going to come out quick. They have to be prepared to consistently deal with scramble drills and plays out of structure. You might have noticed that Jayden Daniels went 3-of-10 for 44 yards on throws 10 or more yards downfield on Thursday night against Parsons’ new team; Green Bay’s corners — the weakest spot on its roster — suddenly have much easier lives as a product of their new star teammate.

Even while allowing the explosives downfield, the Cowboys were able to survive by relying on New York’s penchant for self-immolation in the red zone. In a matchup of last season’s worst red zone offense against its worst red zone defense, the Cowboys swung the game in their favor by limiting the Giants to one touchdown, three field goals and a turnover on downs across five trips inside the 20-yard line.

One of those was on a meltdown from fill-in left tackle James Hudson III, who was benched and limited to special teams duties after he committed two unnecessary roughness penalties and two false starts in a four-play sequence. One of the penalties cost the Giants a first-and-goal opportunity at the 2-yard line after a deep Robinson catch. It would have been one of the more unique moments of Sunday’s action if Xavien Howard hadn’t strung together four penalties in six plays for the Colts later in the afternoon.

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Donovan Wilson gives Cowboys ball back with OT INT

Donovan Wilson leaps to pick off Russell Wilson and give the Cowboys the ball back in overtime.

There isn’t just one problem for the Giants in the red zone. One drive stalled because of the Hudson penalties. Another ended on downs when Cam Skattebo dropped a pass into the flat that would have produced a first down. Kenny Clark had back-to-back pressures to blow up another sequence and force the Giants into a field goal. In general, the Giants can’t run the ball consistently, and the only truly dynamic playmaker they have in tight quarters is Nabers.

Through two weeks, by EPA per play, the Giants are the fourth-best offense in the NFL outside the red zone but the worst by a considerable margin inside the 20-yard line. I would say that has to regress toward the mean, but I was also saying that before the season — and well, it hasn’t yet.

The Cowboys narrowly avoided their nightmare scenario of starting 0-2 in the division. Amid the widespread frustration surrounding Parsons’ departure, there are a few reasons to be optimistic. The run game has been surprisingly effective early this season, with Williams turning 18 carries into 97 yards against the Giants, including a 30-yard touchdown. As Jerry Jones would happily tell you, Dallas’ run defense is better than it has been in years past, too. And with some better hands from CeeDee Lamb against the Eagles, they might be 2-0 right now.

Of course, without a spectacular kick from Aubrey, the Cowboys might also be 0-2.

Some back-and-forth battles are more spectacular than others. That fateful Bills-Chiefs game in the 2021 postseason was a prize fight with two great teams trading haymakers and somehow surviving to land another shot. The Broncos-Colts game in Indianapolis was something closer to two teams opening the door for each other and refusing to go through. The last one to make a critical mistake was going to lose.

That mistake came from the Broncos, who appeared to be escaping with a two-point win after a Spencer Shrader field goal miss from 60 yards, only for a long conference among officials to end with defender Dondrea Tillman getting flagged 15 yards for leverage. He attempted to dive over the center and instead hit him with an Ultimate Warrior-esque big splash. Teammate Eyioma Uwazurike clearly pushed down on long-snapper Luke Rhodes to help create more space for Tillman’s leap. It’s one of the more obscure rules in the NFL to decide a game in recent memory, but it is a clear and obvious foul. Shrader hit a 45-yarder with his ensuing kick to push the Colts to 2-0 and drop the Broncos to 1-1.

From the Broncos’ side, this felt like the same story for the second consecutive week, just told with a completely different plot and a new ending. Last week, an abysmal performance from Bo Nix kept the Titans in the game. But despite turning the ball over four times, the Broncos were able to ride a dominant defensive display against a hapless Titans offensive line to hold onto a narrow lead before sealing things up with their running game in the fourth quarter.

Catch up on NFL Week 2

• Takeaways, questions from all games »
• Graziano overreacts to Week 2 »
• Barnwell on three comeback wins »
• Fantasy football winners and losers »
• Full Week 2 scoreboard » | More »

This week, Nix was much better for most of the contest, going 22-of-30 for 206 yards, three touchdown passes and an interception. The jittery feet, inconsistent ball placement and ill-advised decision-making that popped up throughout Nix’s Week 1 performance weren’t on display against the Colts, especially during an excellent first half. He made a beautiful throw on a scramble drill to hit Troy Franklin for 42 yards in the second quarter, wasn’t sacked and turned just under 37% of his dropbacks into first downs, which is right above league average. His 72.6 Total QBR was up more than 45 points from where it fell in Week 1, when Nix finished 29th of 32 quarterbacks.

But after turning the ball over three times against the Titans, Nix threw a critical interception in the fourth quarter. With the Broncos up five points and in position to either kick a field goal or potentially go up two scores with a touchdown, Nix was put into a dropback passing situation on third-and-3 and attempted to throw the ball with defensive lineman Grover Stewart in his face. The tackle deflected the pass, and while Nix had an open Courtland Sutton on a crosser, the throw wobbled and sailed to safety Cam Bynum, who picked up his second INT in two games with Indianapolis.

For the second week in a row, there also were special teams blunders. After a Colts field goal got them to within one score, the Broncos drove back into field goal range, only for Wil Lutz to miss a 42-yarder with 3:20 left that would have restored Denver’s five-point lead. On a day in which Shrader was 5-for-5 on field goal tries, the miss by Lutz meant the Broncos lost out on six points on trips near or into the red zone.

And there were also penalty issues. After J.K. Dobbins had a 23-yard run to put the Broncos briefly into the red zone, he was flagged and penalized five yards for spiking the football. On the next play, the Broncos ran Dobbins for no gain, and tight end Adam Trautman was flagged for a face mask penalty, pushing the Broncos into a first-and-25 situation. A screen on third-and-24 got them back into field goal range, but the penalties brought the drive to a halt and kept them from scoring a touchdown that probably would have sealed the game.

Last week, the Broncos had a significant margin of error for mistakes on offense and special teams because their defense was able to bully the opposing offense. But this week, the Broncos’ defense wasn’t able to carry Sean Payton’s team to a victory. It allowed the Colts to average more than 7 yards per play and make six trips into the red zone. And Indy became only the second team in NFL history (after the 2024 Commanders) to go two consecutive games without a punt, fumble or interception.

The Broncos weren’t able to slow down the Colts’ run game in particular, with Jonathan Taylor gashing Denver for 165 yards on 25 carries. Though the Colts lost Ryan Kelly and Will Fries to the Vikings in free agency and swapped out Anthony Richardson Sr. (who played a meaningful role in the quarterback run game) for Daniel Jones (who has mostly been limited to sneaks and scrambles), they’ve been extremely impressive on the ground to start the season.

They were able to take advantage of a tactic that’s becoming widespread around the NFL. Defenses have been stemming (or making slight adjustments to their alignment or front just before the snap) for years. But after seeing it come more into vogue with the best college defenses in recent seasons, we’re seeing more NFL defenses use it to create confusion for blocking schemes just before the snap.

On Sunday, the Colts hit three first downs in the second half on run plays in which the Broncos stemmed just before the snap, trying to change the blocking calculus for the offensive line or free up their linebackers to attack the football. Those runs all hit the places the Broncos were making late adjustments. There’s nothing wrong with stemming or making late adjustments on the front as a tool, but just as it creates uncertainty for the offense, it can also make things hairy for the defense on the fly. Take the 68-yard run by Taylor in the fourth quarter on the drive after the Nix interception.

THERE GOES JONATHAN TAYLOR. 69 YARDS!

DENvsIND on CBS/Paramount+https://t.co/HkKw7uXVnt pic.twitter.com/PJaCD6ZM0x

— NFL (@NFL) September 14, 2025

It’s tough to see on replay, but just before the play begins, edge defender Jonathon Cooper sneaks one gap to the interior and tries to create more difficult blocking angles for the run blitz that’s coming from cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian. The Colts are running a wham concept, where the tight end comes across the play after the snap and attempts to take on an unblocked defensive lineman; in this case, Tyler Warren has to get on his horse to try to influence nose tackle D.J. Jones. Jones nearly makes the tackle for a loss, but Warren does just enough to get him out of Taylor’s way, while McMillian is blocked out of the play by Michael Pittman Jr.

Now, the Broncos have to improvise. Alex Singleton ends up in the gap where Cooper was before he stemmed, but Taylor does a great job of quickly regaining his balance and juking Singleton before running away from him. Taylor actually has two potential lanes to hit for huge gains after beating Singleton; he chooses to go outside, simply accelerating away from safety Brandon Jones and heading up the sideline.

The Broncos thrive in coverage, meanwhile, by playing a ton of man. With cornerback Pat Surtain II capable of taking on anybody one-on-one, the Broncos played man coverage on 56.3% of opposing dropbacks last season, the second-highest rate in the NFL. They led the league in EPA per dropback (minus-0.07) on those man coverage snaps and were comfortably the best defense in man by the same metric against the Titans in Week 1.

Yet on Sunday, Jones went 13-of-22 against man coverage for 221 yards. The Broncos pressured him on more than 54% of his man-coverage dropbacks but turned only one of those 12 pressures into a sack. Jones and his offense deserve credit for what they accomplished in those moments, but Colts coach Shane Steichen also had an answer for all the man coverage ready to go.

Everyone’s favorite man-beating play in the NFL is mesh, the concept that almost always includes two crossers passing in opposite directions over the middle of the field, an over route above those crossers and a wheel or “rail” route out of the backfield. Steichen’s Colts run mesh more than most teams, and while it wasn’t always a success, they went back to mesh over and over again in key situations Sunday, when they felt as if the Broncos were likely to play man.

I counted at least four instances of mesh in important spots. Two were disappointing; Pittman dropped one crosser in the red zone, and though Warren got open on an underneath drag route on fourth-and-2 with 13 minutes to go, Jones was pressured and sailed his throw. (He also had Taylor open on a wheel route against Tillman for what could have been a touchdown.)

But it worked in two other situations. Taylor caught a touchdown pass in the red zone when the Broncos simply didn’t cover the wheel route, giving Jones one of the easiest throws he’ll ever make for a score. And then on a critical third-and-6 with 1:50 to go, the Colts not only dialed up mesh again but also threw at Surtain, hitting Alec Pierce on the underneath drag route for a huge first down and forcing the Broncos to use their final timeout.

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0:25

Colts stun Broncos after penalty gives Indy a second chance

Spencer Shrader misses his initial kick, but the Broncos are called for a personal foul, giving the Colts a second chance which is converted for a game-winning field goal.

From there, Steichen curiously chose to take the air out of the football. Indy ran twice for 2 yards, drew the clock down to 17 seconds, took a timeout and then ran the ball a third time with Taylor, who lost two yards on a failed counter run. The Colts obviously were hoping to gain more than 1 yard on those three plays, but I was surprised to see Steichen almost entirely take the ball out of Jones’ hands. Settling for what ended up being a 60-yard field goal was a bad process, even if it ended up working out well for them in the end.

It seems foolish to start the discussion about this game without touching on the biggest storyline. It’s clear that Bengals star quarterback Joe Burrow is going to miss time after suffering a serious toe injury during Sunday’s win over the Jaguars, with further testing to determine whether he will be week-to-week as he heals or sidelined for several months if the injury requires surgery. (Update: Sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter that Burrow will need surgery.) Neither option would be good, but it’s easier to imagine the Bengals hanging on and playing vaguely .500 ball with Jake Browning at quarterback for one month than it would be for three.

When we last saw Browning starting in 2023, he went 4-3 and had a 60.9 Total QBR, which was good for ninth in the NFL from Week 10 onward. The Bengals helped Browning out by posting the league’s second-best average YAC per reception over that span, but he also had the league’s third-best off-target rate and third-best precise pass rate, the latter measuring how reliably each QB puts the ball on his receivers in stride with throws near the torso. Browning was throwing some of the shortest passes in the league, but he’s an accurate passer.

He’s also prone to more negative plays than Burrow, as Browning ran worse-than-average sack and interception rates during his time under center. While he was sacked only once on Sunday, the backup did throw three interceptions after entering the lineup. Two were wild throws under pressure, including one where the Bengals were not able to pass off a simple twist up front. The third was an attempt to fit a dig into a space that simply was not there. Those sort of throws are going to happen when you haven’t played live football in more than a year.

If all you knew about this game was that Burrow went out in the second quarter, Browning threw three interceptions and the Jaguars scored 27 points, you probably would have assumed that this was going to be a fourth straight losing home opener for the Bengals. And frankly, this should have been a Jags win; when Devin Lloyd intercepted Browning’s pass and handed the ball to Trevor Lawrence’s offense on the Cincinnati 12-yard line with 5:22 to go, the Jaguars were in the driver’s seat. Up three, they needed one touchdown to make it a two-score game, which could have put things out of reach.

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Instead, Jacksonville melted down. It had some solid success running the football for the second consecutive week, but a misdirection attempt with Travis Etienne Jr. on first down lost four yards. A second-down pass went off Dyami Brown’s fingertips (his second drop of the game). After a third-down run got the Jags to fourth-and-5, Liam Coen called for the Jags to run mesh. (Yes, everybody runs it — and often in key situations.) The Bengals responded by playing zone, which isn’t the ideal look for mesh, but Brian Thomas got open right over the ball, only to drop Lawrence’s pass and turn the ball over on downs.

Let’s talk about the play itself before we get to the decision. Thomas is being hounded on social media after this game for wanting to avoid hits, with the most damning evidence being Lawrence’s second interception of this game, where Thomas appeared to stick one arm out halfheartedly with a collision coming. It’s not a great look, though I’m not sure why Thomas would suddenly exhibit some reticence about contact after breaking plenty of tackles a year ago and racking up 146 yards on tight-window catches, per NFL Next Gen Stats.

I’m also not sure the fourth-down incompletion has anything to do with the other play. While the Jags are running these crossing routes, Thomas’ shallow route has only about two yards of depth, meaning he needed to pick up three yards after the catch to at least move the chains. Because he’s facing zone, he is supposed to throttle down and present a stationary target for Lawrence. (Against man, he would continue running his route to run away from coverage.) As the ball arrives, Thomas begins to turn upfield to look and see where he needs to run for the first down, not whether a hit is coming. It seems more likely that he took his eye off the ball a fraction of a second too early than anything else (although only the second-year wideout can say for sure).

Should the Jags have kicked a field goal to go up six? Overwhelmingly, we can say the answer to this question is no, and it shouldn’t even be considered anything revolutionary or aggressive at this point. Going for it allows you to score a game-sealing touchdown or hold onto the football with a first down or penalty. Even if you fail, you’re handing the ball over deep in opposing territory, with that opponent often anchored to a game-tying field goal down three as opposed to striking for a game-winning touchdown. Down six, that team would have no choice but to play four-down football and go for the jugular.

ESPN’s model had the decision to go for it as a 5.9% win probability swing relative to trying a field goal. The Bengals ultimately didn’t settle for three, but their drive also required two fourth-down conversions, including a 25-yard pass interference penalty on Travis Hunter that extended the game and served as Cincinnati’s biggest play. And if you want to treat what we saw as gospel, of course, the Bengals proved that Jacksonville kicking a field goal to go up six wouldn’t have made a difference, given that they marched downfield for a touchdown on a long field anyway.

Hunter is off to a slow start as a pro. Through two games, he has nine catches for 55 yards on 14 targets as a receiver. An early injury to Jarrian Jones forced Hunter to play 60% of the defensive snaps on Sunday, and while he forced Andrei Iosivas out of bounds to prevent a catch, Hunter allowed a first down via illegal contact before the 25-yard pass interference call that extended the game. With Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins on the other side, it seems telling that the Bengals were willing to put their game on the line with a fade to Iosivas, their third-best wideout, isolated against Hunter. It’s obviously too early to draw meaningful conclusions, but so far, Hunter hasn’t been a difference-maker on either side of the ball.

Realistically, the Jags should have put this game away before it came down to a final drive. In the second quarter, Lawrence threw a brutal interception in the red zone under pressure from Trey Hendrickson and then nearly threw another, only for that one to be overturned. That second drive ended when Lawrence scrambled 3 yards past the line of scrimmage, threw a pass to Brenton Strange and argued for pass interference on what was an illegal forward pass. Brown dropped what should have been an easy touchdown catch on a crossing route in the fourth quarter, too. Both those drives ended in field goals when they should have been touchdowns.

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0:16

Jake Browning storms over for go-ahead Bengals TD

Jake Browning leaps into the end zone to give the Bengals the lead late in the fourth quarter vs. the Jaguars.

Of course, this stuff happens to the Jaguars all the time. The malaise that eventually ended the Doug Pederson era and brought Coen into town started with the help of Browning, who took on an 8-3 Jaguars team in his second start filling in for Burrow. The Jags were competing for the top seed in the AFC that day, but after Lawrence was injured late and the Jags lost in overtime, it started a brutal losing streak. They lost 18 of Pederson’s final 23 games in charge. They went from ascending to rapidly descending overnight.

And with that in mind, you can understand why there’s a fatalistic feeling about what’s going on with the Jags, even though I’m not sure it’s entirely supported by the evidence. Thomas stopping on a route is proof that he doesn’t want to get hit. Lawrence visibly waiving off a Coen criticism in the fourth quarter is a sign that he’s not impressed with his new coach. Blowing the late lead with some dismal work in the red zone is a sign that these are the same old Jaguars.

Maybe they are. I’m just not sure I’m comfortable drawing that conclusion after two games, especially given that they were a drop or a pass interference penalty away from starting 2-0. That Coen has finally gotten the run game going and that the defense has nearly as many interceptions in two games (five) as it did all of last season (six) are more meaningful positives to me.

And as for the Bengals, well, luck is in the eye of the beholder. It’s obviously not lucky to lose your MVP candidate at quarterback for a significant stretch of time in September. And yet, does this feel like a team that deserves to be 2-0? The offense melted down against the Browns, who lost after their kicker missed an extra point and a chip-shot field goal in the second half. The Bengals turned the ball over three times and needed some very fortuitous drops to win Sunday. I’m not sure they can keep playing this way and expect to keep racking up victories.

And unfortunately, with a two-game road trip against the Vikings and Broncos to come, they’re about to face much stiffer defensive competition without their best player.





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Sources -- Cowboys make Tyler Smith NFL's highest-paid interior OL
Esports

Sources — Cowboys make Tyler Smith NFL’s highest-paid interior OL

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  • Todd ArcherSep 13, 2025, 04:34 PM ET

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      Todd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.

FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys have made left guard Tyler Smith the highest-paid interior offensive lineman in the NFL.

As sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Smith agreed to a four-year extension worth $96 million that includes $81.2 million in guaranteed money. Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith was the highest-paid guard with a four-year, $94 million deal he signed on July 15.

Tyler Smith was under contract through 2026 after the Cowboys picked up the $21.27 million fifth-year option on his contract. He is now signed through 2030.

Though the team dealt star pass rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers on Aug. 28, Smith is the third player the Cowboys have signed to an extension since training camp began. Tight end Jake Ferguson signed a four-year extension worth up to $52 million that included $30 million guaranteed and a $12 million signing bonus. Last month the Cowboys signed cornerback DaRon Bland to a four-year extension worth up to $92 million that included $50 million guaranteed and a $22 million signing bonus.

All three of the deals were negotiated as the Cowboys kept hope that they could resolve the Parsons situation with an extension.

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Smith was the Cowboys’ first-round pick in 2022, and he has started all 47 games he has played. As a rookie, he moved to left tackle following a training camp in which he played mostly guard after Tyron Smith suffered a hamstring avulsion that required surgery.

In 2023, he moved to left guard, and he has been selected to the Pro Bowl the past two seasons. In 2024, he joined Larry Allen, Zack Martin and Travis Frederick as the only four offensive linemen in team history to garner multiple Pro Bowl appearances in their first three seasons.

On Friday, coach Brian Schottenheimer called Tyler Smith “the best guard in football.”

“I don’t think I’m overselling him,” Schottenheimer said. “I really think he is.”

With the retirement of Martin this offseason, Smith, who is just 24, has become the leader of the offensive line room that projects to start a rookie (right guard Tyler Booker) and two second-year players (left tackle Tyler Guyton, center Cooper Beebe).

“He’s important, the leader, and it’s showing up out here,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said on July 27. “I’ve been watching it with his reps. He’ll of course elevate from where he has been the first couple of years. Boy, we’ve got to have his leadership.”



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Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer carries legacy of his dad
Esports

Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer carries legacy of his dad

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  • Todd ArcherSep 4, 2025, 06:00 AM ET

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      Todd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.

FRISCO, Texas — Moments before Thursday’s kickoff between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, Brian Schottenheimer will place his right hand over his heart, close his eyes and bow his head.

He will talk to two people: God and his father, Marty.

“He’s my idol, the guy I looked up to from the time I was a little boy,” the Cowboys’ new head coach said.

He will ask his father for courage to lead his players. He will ask his father to be there with him and say, “I know you’re watching.” He will tell his father he hopes to make him proud.

“Just normal conversations that you would have if he was sitting here, like you and I are right now,” Schottenheimer said in an office overlooking the practice fields at The Star.

Just thinking about it 16 days before the season opener made him emotional. You can imagine what it will be like for him inside Lincoln Financial Field (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC).

It will be the first time in 6,808 days a Schottenheimer will be the head coach for a game in the NFL. The first since Jan. 14, 2007, to be exact.

“I’ve always wanted to make him proud,” Schottenheimer said. “I think that was always something when I got into the business, I knew that I had literally two things: It was my word, which I never will break for anybody because it’s too important, and my last name. That was something that he just always beat into my head like, ‘Hey, you know, you’re a Schottenheimer and what you say has to be truth and honor.’

“But, you know, sitting in this chair makes it a little bit different because I’m following truly in his footsteps. I mean I’ve been a coach for a long time, but if I was just a quality control coach right now, I’d still be trying to carry on his legacy.”

Brian and Marty Schottenheimer chatting before a game, when Brian was the New York Jets offensive coordinator. Al Pereira/Getty Images

MARTY SCHOTTENHEIMER, WHO was 77 when he passed away in 2021 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014, was an NFL head coach for 21 years. He won 200 regular-season games, eighth most all time. But he never made it to a Super Bowl.

By 2006, Brian was the offensive coordinator with the New York Jets, breaking away from his father, with whom he coached in Kansas City, Washington and San Diego.

Brian was 33 years old and viewed as one of the up-and-coming head coaching candidates. In 2007, he interviewed for the Miami Dolphins job. In 2009, with the New York Jets. In 2010, he declined a chance to interview with the Buffalo Bills.

In 2012, he interviewed for the Jacksonville Jaguars job.

He would not interview for another one until speaking with Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones in January.

Marty was 41 when he got his first head coaching job, taking over as the interim head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1984.

In 1986 and ’87, the Browns suffered two of the most heartbreaking AFC Championship Game defeats to John Elway and the Denver Broncos. They are known as “The Drive” and “The Fumble.”

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In 1986, Brian was 13 when Elway drove the Broncos 98 yards for the game-tying touchdown before finishing off the Browns in overtime at Cleveland Stadium.

“Just devastating,” Brian remembered. “I remember after the game going down to the locker room, and the feeling, it was just like a funeral. And then when you get older and you get into the business, you’re like, ‘I get it.’ I mean the sacrifices that these young men make with their time, their body, their health, all those things. To commit to something — a dream, a vision, a goal — and to be so close and to have it come up short.

“The Drive wasn’t as bad as The Fumble. The Fumble was worse.”

Schottenheimer can recite everything about the 1987 AFC Championship Game at Mile High Stadium. The Browns trailed (28-10 at one point) but were driving for the tying touchdown in the fourth quarter when Earnest Byner lost the ball at the Broncos’ 3-yard line.

The silence in the locker room after the 38-33 loss stuck with Schottenheimer, but so did seeing Browns tackle Cody Risien pick up Byner after the play. That is the brotherhood he is trying to instill in his Cowboys.

“Without that, you have nothing,” Brian said. “You guys ask me all the time about the connection piece and stuff like that, these things that these young men try to do around the league, not just here, it’s different.

“I mean they commit to something, and they give it their all. Not for money. Not for fame or things like that. Yeah, that’s nice, but they do it because they love one another and those are the ones that stick with you.”

Marty Schottenheimer was the Cleveland Browns head coach from 1984, when he took over in an interim capacity, until 1988. George Gojkovich/Getty Images

BRIAN SCHOTTENHEIMER WAS at Qualcomm Stadium on Jan. 14, 2007, for what turned out to be his dad’s last game. A week earlier, Brian’s season as the Jets OC ended with a playoff loss to the Patriots.

Marty’s Chargers had the NFL’s best record at 14-2. They were the top seed in the AFC. They had 11 Pro Bowl players and five first-team All-Pro selections. Running back LaDainian Tomlinson, who finished with 2,323 scrimmage yards and 31 touchdowns, was named NFL MVP.

They were Super Bowl favorites.

With 8:35 left in the game, the Chargers had an 8-point lead on the New England Patriots and looked to be on their way to the AFC title game. With a little more than six minutes left, safety Marlon McCree intercepted Tom Brady, which should have helped seal the victory, but instead of going down, he ran with the ball and fumbled it back to the Patriots.

Brady delivered magic with the game-tying and game-winning drives, and the Chargers’ season ended when Nate Kaeding’s game-tying field goal attempt from 54 yards was off the mark.

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A month later, Marty Schottenheimer was the first coach in NFL history to be fired after a 14-win season.

He would coach the Virginia Destroyers of the United Football League in 2011, but his time on an NFL sideline was over.

The Lombardi Trophy would never be his.

“It impacted him. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. You work your whole life, you win over 200 games,” Brian said. “And the Super Bowl was never going to be just for him. It was going to be for all the people that had worked and bled and sweat and tried to help him win one. He was such a selfless person that it wasn’t going to be for him. It was going to be for everybody else.”

During meetings with players and the media since becoming the Cowboys coach, Brian often mentions his father.

“The way we practice and the way I act at practice, my father is looking down from heaven going: ‘What are you doing? That’s not how you practice,'” Schottenheimer said. “But my father also coached a long time ago. And the type of athletes and type of young men that we are dealing with has changed.”

Most of the Cowboys players do not remember Marty as a coach. Cooper Beebe, who grew up in Kansas City, knows stories his father told him about when Marty coached the Chiefs. Jake Ferguson heard stories from his grandfather, former Wisconsin coach, Barry Alvarez.

“I think their coaching styles are pretty similar,” Ferguson said of Alvarez and Marty Schottenheimer. “I thought I knew how my grampa coached until he came back for that Rose Bowl [as interim coach in 2013]. I was in the locker room and I listened to him and was like, ‘OK, this is pretty awesome.'”

Dak Prescott heard Marty Schottenheimer stories from former Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy, who worked under Schottenheimer early in his career. One of Prescott’s marketing agents grew up in Cleveland, so he has shared some of the Browns’ stories, too.

“Hard-nosed ball coach that didn’t take any s—,” Prescott said. “Super excited for Schotty to get this opportunity now, making it real. I know how much of what his dad taught him, and how his dad was as a coach, he’s going to carry into this.”

Brian Schottenheimer begins his NFL head coaching career Thursday, when the Cowboys travel to Philadelphia to face the defending champion Eagles. Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

NOT LONG AFTER Schottenheimer was named Cowboys coach, a package arrived at The Star.

At first, he did not know who it was from, but after opening it, he saw two things: a “Martyball” shirt from his dad’s time with the Chiefs and a 3D-printed version of the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

On the back of the trophy were two words: The Gleam.

In 1986, NFL Films captured Schottenheimer’s pregame message to his Browns before a playoff game.

“There’s a gleam, men,” Schottenheimer told his players. “There’s a gleam. Let’s get the gleam.”

To Brian, the gleam represents the Super Bowl.

“He always envisioned holding up the trophy and, obviously, the beautiful Lombardi Trophy, the shine off the trophy, that’s the gleam,” Schottenheimer said. “It’s the gleam of you holding the trophy up in front of the whole team and all the different images that come back from players and coaches, everyone around the deal.

“He always talked about wanting to see the gleam, and the gleam was holding the trophy. So his message was, ‘Hey, imagine yourself holding that trophy. We’re this close.'”

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Schottenheimer’s sister, Kristen, sent him the package. He opened it just before he was about to make his first address to all of the staff in the Cowboys organization.

“Literally, I broke down,” Schottenheimer said. “Steve Shimko, our quarterbacks coach — it’s so funny — he goes, ‘Hey man, you doing good? Big meeting coming up.’ I’m like, ‘No! I’m not!’

Tears rolled down his face. Shimko left and told some other assistants that Schottenheimer might be late to the meeting.

“But I pulled it back together,” Schottenheimer said. “Had a good meeting. I had to man up and make it work.”

On Thursday, tears are likely to come again as he embarks on his first season as the coach of a storied franchise that has not won a Super Bowl since 1995. He has said when he wins a Super Bowl, his father will get a ring.

He once had the goal of being the youngest head coach in NFL history but had to wait years for his chance.

Now 51, it’s finally here. And his father, whom he called his best friend, will be with him.

“Obviously, I’ll be excited, I’ll be amped up. I’m sure I’ll be nervous, that’s part of the deal,” Schottenheimer said. “From the time I played, to coach, it doesn’t matter, there’s butterflies and there should be butterflies. And so I’m sure opening night, in front of the world, and having a chance to shut my eyes and talk to those two people will be pretty emotional.”



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NFL 2025 Kickoff Game: How to Watch Cowboys vs. Eagles Tonight
Gaming Gear

NFL 2025 Kickoff Game: How to Watch Cowboys vs. Eagles Tonight

by admin


The Philadelphia Eagles begin their Super Bowl title defense at home against their NFC East rivals, the Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles return with many of the stars from last year’s championship team, including quarterback Jalen Hurts, running back Saquon Barkley and wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. The Cowboys just traded away their best defensive player in Micah Parsons but should be able to score plenty of points this season with an offense led by Dak Prescott and George Pickens joining CeeDee Lamb at receiver.

The Cowboys and Eagles kick off tonight at 8:20 p.m. ET (5:20 p.m. PT). The game is available to watch nationally on NBC or stream on Peacock.

Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles host the Dallas Cowboys tonight in the first game of the 2025 NFL season.

Cooper Neill/Getty Images

How to watch Cowboys vs. Eagles

You can watch this game on your local NBC station with a cable or satellite TV subscription or with an over-the-air antenna. Most live TV streaming services such as YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV also carry your local NBC station (see below). 

If you don’t subscribe to a TV service with NBC and want to watch the game tonight, you can sign up for Peacock Premium for $11 per month. In addition to tonight’s game to kick off the 2025 season, NBC and Peacock will show the NFL’s Sunday Night Football broadcasts as they have in the past.

You can also subscribe to NFL Plus, the NFL’s streaming service at $7 per month, but streams are limited to just watching on a phone or tablet (not a TV).

Peacock/CNET

With Peacock’s $11-per-month Premium plan, you can watch tonight’s Cowboys-Eagles game and every Sunday Night Football game this season. Read our Peacock review.

Sling/CNET Sarah Tew/CNET

YouTube TV costs $83 a month and includes NBC and the rest of the channels you need to watch NFL games week in and week out. Right now, the first two months are discounted to $50 a month, and there is a free 21-day trial. Plug in your ZIP code on YouTube TV’s welcome page to see which local networks are available in your area. Read our YouTube TV review.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Hulu Plus Live TV costs $83 a month and includes NBC in most markets. On its live news page, you can enter your ZIP code under the “Can I watch local news in my area?” question at the bottom of the page to see which local channels you get. Read our Hulu Plus Live TV review.

Fubo/CNET

Fubo’s Essential plan costs $85 a month and includes NBC. Click here to see which local channels you get. 

Fubo recently introduced a $56-per-month skinny bundle for sports fans that includes the other channels that show NFL games — ABC, CBS, Fox and ESPN — but it does not include NBC. Read our Fubo review.

DirecTV Stream/CNET

All the live TV streaming services above allow you to cancel anytime and require a solid internet connection. Looking for more information? Check out our live TV streaming services guide.



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Esports

Inside the Cowboys’ decision to trade Micah Parsons

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  • Jeremy Fowler

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    Jeremy Fowler

    senior NFL national reporter

      Jeremy Fowler is a senior national NFL writer for ESPN, covering the entire league including breaking news. Jeremy also contributes to SportsCenter both as a studio analyst and a sideline reporter covering for NFL games. He is an Orlando, Florida native who joined ESPN in 2014 after covering college football for CBSSports.com.

  • Don Van Natta Jr.

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    Don Van Natta Jr.

    ESPN Senior Writer

    • Host and co-executive producer of the new ESPN series, “Backstory”
    • Member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national, explanatory and public service journalism
    • Author of three books, including New York Times best-selling “First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush”
    • 24-year newspaper career at The New York Times and Miami Herald

Sep 2, 2025, 06:00 AM ET

Additional reporting by Todd Archer, Rob Demovsky, Dan Graziano and Seth Wickersham

THE PIVOTAL MEETING that led to one of the most shocking NFL trades of the past decade occurred on a pleasant North Texas morning in mid-March, five months and a lifetime of ill feelings ahead of any deal being put to paper.

The agenda for the March 18 one-on-one in Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ office at The Star, the team’s headquarters in Frisco, Texas, between Jones and two-time first-team All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons remains in question. A source close to Jones says it was Parsons who asked for the meeting, and that the 82-year-old owner always understood the subject to be Parsons’ contract. After declaring in February 2024 that he wanted to be a Cowboy “for life,” Parsons had been trying to reach an extension with the team, without success.

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“Jerry and Micah had met periodically over the last four years to discuss business and leadership issues,” the source said, noting that the then-25-year-old Parsons viewed Jones as a mentor. “Jerry loved having these discussions with Micah. But the meeting in March wasn’t that, despite Micah saying publicly later it was to discuss leadership. Micah told Jerry, ‘I want to come in and discuss where we are,’ meaning a contract extension. So that was Jerry’s expectation.”

A source close to Parsons said this is “absolutely not” true and that Jones called Parsons in for a leadership meeting, only to steer the conversation toward contract talks. The source says Parsons directed Jones to talk details with his agent, David Mulugheta. However the conversation got to a contract extension, both parties acknowledge that it got there.

Over a three-hour meeting, Jones and Parsons discussed numbers, years and guaranteed money. Both sides expected to reset the market for edge rushers, topping the $40 million average per season and $123.5 million guaranteed that Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns had received nine days earlier. Parsons’ 52.5 sacks in his career are the fifth most in a player’s first four seasons. Jones said after Parsons left his office at The Star, the owner believed an agreement was done.

Later the same day, Parsons called Cowboys chief operating officer and co-owner Stephen Jones, Jerry’s son, in an attempt to get more money out of the deal, the source told ESPN.

“[Parsons] called Stephen and asked can we do this, can we change the numbers and up the guarantee,” the source said. “He started negotiating. He asked for several different elements and increases. This became a negotiation that Micah was in charge of.”

Stephen Jones consulted with his father, and Jerry agreed to the sweetened terms. The Cowboys believed they had a deal in place with Parsons and would continue to insist that he had agreed to it. Though the exact terms aren’t known, Cowboys sources insist they offered more guaranteed money than the $136 million Parsons would get from Green Bay, albeit spread across a five-year extension, not the four-year extension the Packers would make.

“It was north of $150 million,” the source said.

The Cowboys had been known to conduct contract talks without players’ agents present — a practice known around the league as “hotboxing.” Dak Prescott’s 2024 deal was one such negotiation, whereby the Joneses and the quarterback discussed Prescott’s place within the organization’s future and Prescott’s agent, Todd France, came in later to negotiate the finer details of a contract. (“I never engaged in numbers,” Prescott said.) The deal was eventually signed the day of Dallas’ first game of the season. If the Cowboys expected this negotiation to follow the same path, Mulugheta was about to confront them with a counterpoint.

Jones would say in August on Michael Irvin’s podcast, “We were going to send [the terms] over to the agent and the agent said don’t bother because we’ve got all that to negotiate.”

Parsons was courting a record-setting contract while the Cowboys balanced other personnel concerns. Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

To this day, Parsons’ agency has never seen the final details or structure of the deal that Jones said he cut with Parsons in April, per a source close to Parsons. Jones and Mulugheta would never truly negotiate at any point. Dallas would simply say the deal is done; Parsons can have it if he wants it. (Mulugheta declined to comment for this story).

“I’m the one who has to sign the check and Micah is the one who has to agree to it,” Jones said on April 1 at the NFL owners’ spring meeting in Palm Beach, Fla. “That’s the straightest way to get there, is the one who writes the check and the one who is agreeing to it talking.”

The Jones source says he had nothing against Mulugheta, though Jones insisted to reporters in Palm Beach that he didn’t know Mulugheta’s name, adding, “The agent is not a factor here, or something to worry about.” At that point, Jones was dug in because “Micah looked him in his eyes and said we have a deal.” The source relayed a feeling from Jones of, “Oh so that’s how they are going to do it. Micah is going to negotiate with us, we’re going to go up, we’re going to have an agreement, and then the agent says that’s the floor and we’re going to go from there?”

“Jerry was like, ‘Hell no. That’s not the way this is going to work.'”

play

1:54

Schefter breaks down how Parsons to the Packers came to be

Adam Schefter breaks down the massive Micah Parsons trade from Dallas to Green Bay.

WITH THE PARSONS situation seemingly at an impasse, the Cowboys readied themselves for the 2025 NFL draft in late April. Parsons’ future with the team was not an issue stressed by draft pundits or armchair analysts, most of whom had Dallas selecting a wide receiver with the No. 12 pick. The Cowboys would fill a different need by taking guard Tyler Booker, then in early May getting their receiver by making a trade with the Pittsburgh Steelers to obtain mercurial wideout George Pickens.

The benefit of hindsight suggests Dallas’ second-round selection had greater meaning than believed at the time, though a Cowboys source said the Parsons matter did not affect their draft board. Edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku, chosen with the No. 44 pick, came off a season in which he led the FBS with 62 quarterback pressures and had 16.5 sacks. Those seeking subtext behind the Ezeiruaku pick mostly noted that edge rushers Dante Fowler Jr. (signed on a one-year deal in March — the Packers were believed by league sources to be runners-up for his services) and Sam Williams were heading into contract years, and that the rookie could help ensure the future. Less meaningful to observers was the fact that Parsons was headed into a contract year too.

Although Jones would later say the team began discussing the idea of a Parsons trade in the spring, Dallas did not explore trade talks involving Parsons before the draft, per a Cowboys team source. For one, the contract negotiations were still fresh and the team harbored hope of Parsons accepting the previously discussed deal. The Cowboys also prefer to do trades postdraft when they believe other teams are less inclined to cling to personnel. The Pickens deal reinforced that philosophy.

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But the longer Parsons went without a contract, the less likely he and Mulugheta were to accept the terms Jones believed had been agreed upon in March — the edge rusher market had begun to skyrocket. In the weeks before the Jones/Parsons summit at the Cowboys practice facility, the Las Vegas Raiders’ Maxx Crosby (three years, $106.5 million, $91.5 million guaranteed) and Browns’ Garrett ($40 million per year and $123.5 million guaranteed) had inked new deals. By mid-July, the Steelers’ T.J. Watt would sign a three-year, $123 million extension that established him as the league’s highest-paid nonquarterback on an average salary per year basis.

Sources close to Parsons believed that he, more than three years younger than Garrett and five years younger than Watt, would blow those deals away. And a Cowboys source said the team got indications that it would prefer to “go last” in the pass-rush market, because prices were only rising.

As Jones watched the market spike around him, the Cowboys owner and GM grew increasingly comfortable letting Parsons play on his fifth-year option or trading him.

Balancing the cost of the entire roster was a factor in Dallas’ calculus. Only one team — the Cincinnati Bengals — has three players making at least $30 million per year. If the Cowboys had given Parsons more than $40 million annually, they would have had the league’s highest-paid defender, highest-paid quarterback in Prescott ($60 million per year) and one of the highest-paid wide receivers in CeeDee Lamb ($34 million).

If the Cowboys weren’t paying Parsons, it would make negotiating with in-house stars, most notably guard Tyler Smith and cornerback DaRon Bland, an easier proposition. Smith, a 2022 first-round pick, could get his extension after Year 3 in a way Parsons did not. Bland was signed to a four-year, $92 million extension on Sunday.

“It’s an allocation of money,” Jones said the night the trade was completed. “So, we chose to have numbers of players that we could pay handsomely that would be those caliber of players, not young practice squad players. We’re talking players that can really compete.”

And while Parsons’ presence in the lineup was impossible to replicate — by expected points added per play from 2021 through 2024, the Cowboys were the NFL’s best defense with Parsons on the field and the league’s worst by the same metric when he was not — Dallas also believed there were times when his skills were counterproductive to the winning cause. Parsons ranked 68th among edge rushers in stop rate against the run and 81st in yards per run stop last season, according to the FTN Football Almanac.

play

1:36

Orlovsky slams Parsons trade as ‘one of the worst’ in Cowboys’ history

Dan Orlovsky goes off on the Cowboys for allowing Micah Parsons to leave and receiving very little in draft picks from the trade.

“For Jerry, it came back to we have got to be able to stop the run,” the source close to Jones said. “Micah does not do that. In fact, because we couldn’t stop the run, it made Micah less effective. Then they’re going to run right at him, and that’s not what he does. We could not take care of mission critical.”

Still, the Cowboys were preparing as if Parsons would be in the lineup in 2025. They understood how difficult it would be to trade him, even though a team source said they were unconcerned about the public relations fallout the team would face given his popularity with fans. This was a business and personnel consideration only, and the Joneses’ belief that the price would have to be two first-round picks and an established defensive player was crystallized as the return about a week out from the trade, per a team source.

The last star pass rusher traded on his rookie contract — also right before the start of the season — was Khalil Mack in 2018. The Chicago Bears sent two-first-round picks to the then-Oakland Raiders to acquire him; Mack had 40.5 sacks through four seasons, 12.5 fewer than Parsons over the same time frame. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, in his first season in charge at the time, had a comparable offer to the Raiders turned down, an experience that might have helped get the deal for Parsons over the line.

“I think what I learned from [the Mack] experience is you’ve got to be in it early,” Gutekunst said Friday.

Only a week out from the start of the regular season, there simply wouldn’t be many trade suitors willing to pay that freight, especially when they would have to negotiate a market-shattering new contract with Parsons on top of the draft and personnel capital they would be expending.

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Meanwhile, Parsons himself had remained around the team, showing up to a crawfish boil and paintball outing during the first two days of the offseason program in April as a stated show of leadership and support for new coach Brian Schottenheimer. In June, Parsons told reporters he would attend training camp, though a hold-in began to emerge as a likely proposition absent a new deal.

“When you go around the league and you see these other teams taking care of their best guys, I seen T.J. [Watt] gotten taken care of. Maxx [Crosby] got taken care of. Myles [Garrett] got taken care of, [and] he’s got two years left on his deal,” Parsons said on July 22, the day after training camp began. “You see a lot of people around the league taken care of, and you wish you had that same type of energy.”

There was tension, but the relationship between Parsons and the Cowboys was bubbling at a low simmer. Almost without warning, it would boil over.

play

0:42

Tannenbaum: Trading Micah Parsons was a ‘massive strategic mistake’

Mike Tannenbaum sounds off on Jerry Jones and the Cowboys’ decision to trade Micah Parsons to the Packers.

IN AN ERA when statements from famous athletes are stage-managed within an inch of their lives by player agents and teams of publicists, this gave the appearance of something different.

At 1:16 p.m. CT on Friday, Aug. 1, Parsons transmitted three pages of single-spaced text from his iPhone’s Notes app to X, laying out chapter and verse of his discontent with the Cowboys. He revealed his perspective on the March meeting with Jones, the parameters of the contract agreement that he said he believed were a starting point and the Cowboys thought represented an agreement, and capped it all off with a trade demand.

“Unfortunately I no longer want to be here,” Parsons wrote. “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. I had purposely stayed quiet in hopes of getting something done.”

The quiet had been interrupted, though it had been Jerry Jones who had broken the silence earlier in camp with an indictment of Parsons’ durability and availability.

“Just because we sign him doesn’t mean we’re going to have him,” Jones said. “He was hurt six games last year [actually four]. Seriously. I remember signing a player for the highest-paid at the position in the league and he got knocked out two-thirds of the year in Dak Prescott. So, there’s a lot of things you can think about, just as the player does, when you’re thinking about committing and guaranteeing money.”

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Parsons had missed only one game over his first three seasons in the league.

The “repeated shots” Parsons cited continued when Jones was asked to respond to the “Pay Micah” chants the owner was serenaded with by fans at camp.

“I heard it light, but not compared to how I heard them say, ‘Pay Lamb’ [last year],” Jones said a day later. “That was a faint little sound compared to the way they were hollering last year, ‘Pay Lamb.’ … Whoever’s not in, you can count on a few hollering that. But it was a big loud chant last year on Lamb.”

Stephen Jones would further aggravate Parsons by commenting, “We want to pay Micah too, he’s got to want to be paid.”

Amid the pettiness and hurt feelings, Parsons continued to show up — a source close to Parsons said Mulugheta doesn’t see the value in players getting fined and advised him to be present — albeit while citing back tightness as the reason he wasn’t practicing. Parsons had an MRI on his back in late August that came back clean, according to Schottenheimer, and was cleared by Cowboys doctors to practice.

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Why Herbstreit applauds Dallas for trading Micah Parsons

Kirk Herbstreit thinks the Cowboys trading Micah Parsons will be good for developing a new team culture.

He continued to participate in walk-throughs and meetings but also exhibited strange behavior including not wearing his practice jersey, or on another day wearing it around his neck, and coming to practice without shoes. Before the team’s preseason finale against the Falcons, Parsons ate nachos as he walked to the locker room, and most memorably lay on a medical table during the game and appeared to close his eyes. The image went viral.

“[Cowboys pass-rushing legend] Charles Haley would have flipped him off the damn table if he saw that,” a team source said.

Parsons’ behavior during camp rubbed many in the building, including in the locker room, the wrong way, with one team source saying his energy was “deflating.” But a team source noted that Parsons stayed engaged in meetings and conducted his own two-a-days — one lift, one running session per workday. “I believed he was doing everything he could to be ready for Philly (Week 1),” the source said.

This encapsulates the Parsons experience to sources in the building over his four-year tenure. Multiple sources said he wasn’t the most diligent in the weight room or in getting treatment, though others considered him a hard worker who improved his communication skills with coaches and players but whose decision-making was sometimes in question. One example was Parsons’ outspokenness on his podcast, which rankled some teammates. The front office and coaches didn’t have a major problem with it. But teammate Malik Hooker made his issues known publicly last year. As one team source put it, Parsons was known to be critical, sometimes out of passion for the game, but coaches would urge him to consider that “you can’t call guys out who don’t have your ability,” and learning how to lead and “bring others along with you” is crucial. That part was considered a process for him.

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Amid the turmoil, there were many in the game who believed a détente would eventually be reached. Multiple team sources believed Parsons was sincere in his stated desire to retire a Cowboy, noting that he recently built a home in the area. “I think he felt he was going to play out his career there,” a source said. Jerry Jones’ own words were another major reason why the matter seemed resolvable.

“Any talk of trading is B.S.,” Jones said on the “Stephen A. Smith Show” on Aug. 22 even as a team president who knows the Cowboys operation well told ESPN that in his discussions with them in August, it was clear that Dallas was prepared to move Parsons.

“Of course Jerry gave a head fake to the media,” a source close to Jones said. “You have to go out and say we are not interested in trading him. If you say you are trading him, you don’t get s—.” Jones would acknowledge to reporters after Parsons was traded that this had been a purposeful tactic.

Amid the drama around the contract and other lesser issues including Parsons’ practice habits among the pain points, the Joneses had seen enough. The Cowboys told the team president that they loved the player, but not the person. They had made up their minds. Now they just needed a trade partner.

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EJ Manuel questions how Cowboys could trade Micah Parsons

Sam Acho and EJ Manuel react to the Cowboys trading Micah Parsons to the Packers.

TWO DAYS BEFORE Parsons became a Packer, the pass rusher’s representatives made one last-ditch effort with the Cowboys — in the form of an email. The note from Mulugheta to Jerry and Stephen Jones, as one source who viewed the correspondence recalls, acknowledged that a lot of things had been said in the media, perhaps some miscommunications along the way, but despite all of that, Parsons was still willing to do a deal that would keep him in Dallas. The letter said Parsons’ representatives were willing to come to Dallas, jump on a video call, whatever it took to potentially hammer something out.

Jerry Jones responded to the message, saying the Cowboys were prepping a trade and if Parsons wanted to play in Dallas in 2025, he would have to do so on his fifth-year option. Parsons would become a free agent in 2026, but the team could also use the franchise tag to prevent his departure at that point. Parsons would have to decide his next move if the Cowboys couldn’t trade him, though a source close to him notes that Parsons never threatened to hold out and if healthy, he would have played on the option.

Things accelerated from there. The Packers, given permission to speak to Mulugheta by the Cowboys, made their first formal contract offer to Parsons on Tuesday. Green Bay had parameters of a trade hammered out that matched Dallas’ terms: Two first-round picks and veteran defensive tackle Kenny Clark would go to the Cowboys in exchange for Parsons. Clark, a staple of the Packers defense since entering the league in 2016, was hardly a throw-in. His contract was attractive — Green Bay had already paid him the bulk of his 2025 deal, so the Cowboys would pay him just $2 million this season, and $20 million unguaranteed next season. A two-year, $22 million deal for a high-level player was viewed as a win for a Dallas team that sees the 29-year-old Clark as a multiyear solution, and there would also be no dead money if the Cowboys chose to release him after the season.

“From our perspective, it had to include Kenny Clark,” a source close to Jones said. “The only way it worked for us, we need something that helps us now and helps us in the future.”

That Green Bay — the opponent that had knocked three of the best Cowboys teams of the past 11 years (2014, 2016, 2023) out of the playoffs — was the trade partner was apparently not a deterrent to getting the deal done.

As for Parsons’ new contract, while the Cowboys had been unwilling to deal with Mulugheta, the agent’s communication with the Packers was smooth, according to a source close to Parsons. Past deals for clients Jordan Love and Xavier McKinney offered familiarity between the parties, so hammering out an agreement took some time but was not painful according to the source. Had the deal fallen apart, at least three other teams were interested, and the Cowboys would not have traded Parsons within the division. One team told ESPN it wasn’t interested because it felt the price was too high for a player who might turn out to be a headache. Another believed Dallas wouldn’t trade Parsons until next spring and indicated they might be interested then.

Green Bay knew the deal would be costly and didn’t fight that reality, with a source familiar with negotiations saying the contract was “transparent and fast,” for the most part. The move to a deal gained steam in the hour or so before 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, once Mulugheta had laid out the trade terms and Parsons had signed off. Parsons’ four-year, $188 million deal included $120 million fully guaranteed at signing and $136 million in total guarantees, making him the highest-paid nonquarterback in NFL history.

The Packers have reached the playoffs five times in seven seasons under Gutekunst but have not made a Super Bowl during that time. Less than a year after Gutekunst was promoted to GM in 2018, then-team president Mark Murphy fired Mike McCarthy as coach with four games left in that season. In 2019, Murphy hired Matt LaFleur, who took Green Bay to two straight NFC title games, but the team hasn’t been back since. Both Gutekunst and LaFleur are under contract through the 2026 season, and both report to new team president Ed Policy, who took over in July after Murphy retired.

Several Packers sources said Gutekunst thought all along a trade for Parsons was a long shot. He thought that when push came to shove, Jerry Jones would not part ways with a star player in the prime of his career — an idea Gutekunst confirmed Friday in Parsons’ unveiling in Green Bay.

“The chances of these things [blockbuster trades] happening are pretty slim, and I think that was my mindset the whole time, was keep the conversations going because of the uniqueness of the player,” Gutekunst said. “But I don’t think it was really until the last few days that I actually thought, ‘Hey, there’s an opportunity here to close this thing out.'”

When doing their homework on Parsons, Gutekunst and the Packers reached out to people that had worked with, played with or coached Parsons in college and in Dallas.

He wouldn’t name names, but league sources said Gutekunst and McCarthy, who coached the Packers from 2006 to 2018 and Cowboys from 2020 to 2024, maintained a good relationship. Parsons and McCarthy had a solid connection — the edge rusher said in January that Dallas’ decision to part ways with his former coach was “devastating.”

One Packers source said the possibility of landing Parsons started to feel real about a week before the deal, which lines up with Dallas’ timeline of when the Cowboys got serious.

By late afternoon Thursday, LaFleur spoke directly with Parsons about their new partnership, with his assistant coaches coming in and out of LaFleur’s office to high-five and celebrate.

As to which team got the better end of the deal, opinions varied, though the most forceful reaction came in the form of criticism leveled at the polarizing Jerry Jones. Two NFL executives questioned why the Cowboys didn’t get more in return after the trade went down.

“Very bad for Dallas in that they received little compensation in comparison to other superstar prime trades,” a separate NFC executive said. “It’s OK for Green Bay in that their interests are to get beyond the first or second round. I think [Parsons is] a very productive regular season player. I think when teams start running heavy in the playoffs, he becomes less scary.”

In a news conference following the trade, one in which Jerry Jones repeatedly referred to Parsons as “Michael,” the owner justified the move.

“It takes more than one [player to win a championship] and so you do have to allocate your resources, whether it be draft picks or whether it be finances, you have to allocate those resources,” Jones said. “There was no question in our mind that [Micah] could bring us a lot of resources on a trade.”

As Jones took heat for the deal in some corners, others in the league were more conciliatory toward Dallas, especially when noting the increased salary cap flexibility and how it could impact the Cowboys’ negotiations with other core players.

“[Filling a] DT need and two 1s is a good haul, honestly,” an AFC executive said. “Plus, not paying another max contract. That’s a big part of this.”

The Joneses expressed a belief that they would end up with another three to five players out of the deal, in addition to taking care of Smith and Bland.

The end of the Parsons era in Dallas, perhaps fittingly, came in the form of another tweet — this one a farewell. While expressing his appreciation to Cowboys fans and vowing that North Texas would continue to be his offseason home, Parsons acknowledged the fractious negotiations that had reached a tipping point with that much-debated meeting with Jerry Jones.

“I never wanted this chapter to end, but not everything was in my control. My heart has always been here, and it still is. Through it all, I never made any demands,” Parsons said, not acknowledging his trade request. “I never asked for anything more than fairness. I only asked that the person I trust to negotiate my contract be part of the process.”

Parsons made his first appearance in Green Bay the next day, meeting the local media and expressing relief at his situation’s resolution. He dismissed his back problem — revealed on Monday to be an L4/L5 facet joint sprain for which the Cowboys had prescribed a five-day plan of an anti-inflammatory corticosteroid and a physical therapy program — as something that would be a major issue, reinforcing the belief that his contract, not health, was at the core of his limited summer participation. Parsons practiced with the Packers on Monday.

“I think physically, you know, I’m great,” Parsons said. “I think I can contribute a lot. I’m going to team up with the doctors in creating a plan. We already talked about how we can ramp things up and get me into a flow where they feel comfortable and I feel comfortable.”

Parsons will return to Dallas with his new team on Sept. 28, for a Sunday night, Week 4 showdown against the Cowboys. His final appearance at AT&T Stadium as a Cowboy will be remembered for the sight of Parsons splayed across a training table. His next one, wearing a Packers uniform, figures to restore the vision of how Parsons became one of the elite defensive players of his generation in the first place. Parsons himself noted the stakes of what comes next.

“They didn’t give up what they gave up for me to sit on the sidelines.”



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Jerry Jones: Micah Parsons trade about making Cowboys better
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Jerry Jones: Micah Parsons trade about making Cowboys better

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  • Todd ArcherAug 28, 2025, 10:07 PM ET

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      Todd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.

FRISCO, Texas — To Jerry Jones, the trade of Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers will make the Dallas Cowboys a better postseason team.

“This was a move to get us successful in the playoffs,” Jones said in a 46-minute news conference Thursday after the Cowboys acquired defensive tackle Kenny Clark and first-round picks in 2026 and 2027. “This was a move to be better on defense, stopping the run. This was a move to, if we get behind, not be run on. And it was a deliberate move, a well-thought-out move to make this happen.”

First, the Cowboys will have to reach the postseason without Parsons, who was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his first four seasons and also totaled 52.5 sacks.

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Second, they will need their pass-rushing depth, led by Dante Fowler Jr., Marshawn Kneeland, Sam Williams, Donovan Ezeiruaku and James Houston, to become as forceful as Parsons, who is one of two players to record at least 12 sacks in each of his first four seasons since sacks became an official stat in 1982. Those five players have accounted for 73 sacks, with Kneeland, entering his second season, and Ezeiruaku, a rookie, yet to record a sack.

Third, the Cowboys will need their offense, led by new coach Brian Schottenheimer and quarterback Dak Prescott, who is returning from an injury that cost him the final nine games last season, to score a lot of points, starting next week against the Philadelphia Eagles.

“In our judgment, this gives us a better chance to be a better team than we have been the last several years,” Jones said.

Before last year’s 7-10 finish, the Cowboys went 12-5 three straight years but couldn’t get past the divisional round of the playoffs. In their past three playoff losses to the Packers (2023) and San Francisco 49ers (2021-22), the Cowboys have allowed 425 yards on the ground on 103 carries with six rushing touchdowns. Parsons did not record a sack in any of those games.

Last year, the Cowboys gave up more than 100 yards in 12 of 17 games and more than 140 yards eight times. With the addition of Clark, the Cowboys have added size (6-foot-3, 314 pounds) and expertise (a three-time Pro Bowler).

“Kenny Clark is a big part of this,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “That was a big part of winning right now. … We hadn’t been able to win the big games 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 going to 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 Micah because obviously he’s elite at rushing the passer.”

New defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus was a Cowboys assistant when they were No. 1 against the run in 2016. In the past 12 years as a head coach, coordinator or linebackers coach, Eberflus has had eight top-10 run defenses.

“When you have the kind of extraordinary pass rush that Micah has, then the way to mitigate that pass rush is to run at [him],” Jerry Jones said. “If the pass rush doesn’t get you ahead, pretty big time, then when you’re playing even or behind, then you really got a problem in stopping the run.”

Parsons will make his return to AT&T Stadium with the Packers on Sept. 28. Jerry Jones has seen former stars return before, like Emmitt Smith in 2003 with the Arizona Cardinals.

“Micah will be problematic, very problematic,” Jerry Jones said. “I’d suggest that we get ahead and run the ball.”



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Micah Parsons watches from sidelines as Cowboys finish preseason
Esports

Micah Parsons watches from sidelines as Cowboys finish preseason

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  • Todd ArcherAug 23, 2025, 01:11 AM ET

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      Todd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys’ preseason is over — now the Micah Parsons Watch takes a different turn.

At 4:35 p.m. CT, roughly two and a half hours before kickoff of Friday night’s preseason finale against the Atlanta Falcons, Parsons walked down the hall to the Cowboys locker room eating nachos. An Atlanta fan taking a tour of the stadium shouted to him “Come to the Falcons,” which prompted Parsons to make a ‘call me’ sign to his ears.

As he approached the locker room doors, he made a similar gesture as fans cheered for him.

During the game, Parsons was the only player not to wear a jersey on the sidelines. He instead wore a navy hoodie with grey sleeves and a winter hat. To start the third quarter, Parsons laid down on the medical table behind the bench as the Cowboys’ offense drove down the field.

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Dallas coach Brian Schottenheimer said he was not aware of what Parsons was doing, since “I was calling the game.”

“At the end of the day, we’ll look at the film and we’ll talk to everybody involved and we’ll have a great assessment of how we did both on and off the field,” Schottenheimer said.

After the game, Parsons — who has scrubbed references to the Cowboys on his social media feeds — replied to an X post that noted he was only laying on the medical table for a brief period of time.

“I actually appreciate this,” Parsons wrote in his response on social media. “The way media shapes perception and narratives is wild-and if he hadn’t said anything, everyone would’ve just run with it. I’d never disrespect the guys out there fighting for their lives.”

Parsons declined to answer questions after the Cowboys’ 31-13 win, but cornerback Trevon Diggs answered some on his behalf, even saying Parsons had an MRI on his back Friday.

During the June minicamp and again at the start of training camp, Parsons said he was dealing with back tightness. He received treatment while in Oxnard, California, but owner and general manager Jerry Jones believed the back tightness was in the same category as the trade request — just part of the negotiations for a long-term deal.

Asked if he thinks Parsons will play against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 1, Diggs said, “It depends on how his back feels. I know he was real sore this morning. He went and got it checked out. That’s the last thing I heard from him.”

Over the past two days, Jones praised Parsons and said the offer he believes the two agreed to in March would have been for the largest guaranteed money given to a non-quarterback. But Jones also said on Michael Irvin’s YouTube Channel that when the Cowboys attempted to send the details to Parsons’ agent, David Mulugheta, they were told to “stick it up our ass.”

“I’d never disrespect the guys out there fighting for their lives,” Micah Parsons wrote on social media in response to the reaction to a photograph that showed him laying down on the medical training table at the start of the third quarter Friday. Sam Hodde/Getty Images

Whether that was the direct quote or not, the Cowboys and Mulugheta have not exchanged contract proposals, and the team appears ready for Parsons to play the season on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract at a cost of $21.324 million.

“I wish everything could be handled and everything could be taken care of,” Diggs said. “He’s one of our star players. He’s the heart and soul of this team. I just wish things weren’t how they are. I wish it was different circumstances, but everybody has to do what’s best for them at the end of the day. I feel like just leave it in God’s hands and God will figure it out for everyone.”

Parsons has not practiced the entire summer as he conducted a hold-in while the Cowboys were in California, as well as the two practices that were held at Ford Center in Frisco, Texas. He took part in walk-throughs and attended meetings, including one prior to Friday’s preseason finale.

The Cowboys will begin preparation for the Sept. 4 opener after final cuts are made Tuesday. The Cowboys are scheduled to have their first practice after setting the roster on Aug. 29. Following an off day, they will practice Aug. 31-Sept. 2 before flying to Philadelphia the day before the game.

Earlier this week, Schottenheimer expressed confidence Parsons would play against the Eagles.

After what has transpired over the past two days, does Schottenheimer remain confident?

“I do,” he said.



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