Micah Parsons played the first NFL game of his career for a team not named the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, but he could’ve been playing in midnight green.
The Cowboys traded Parsons, the four-time Pro Bowl pass rusher, to the Green Bay Packers on Aug. 28 for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-round draft picks.
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Before that, the Philadelphia Eagles tried to acquire Parsons, offering two first-round picks, a third-round pick and a fifth-round pick, “amongst other things,” according to Fox’s Jay Glazer, but the Cowboys didn’t want to trade him within the NFC East.
Team owner Jerry Jones appeared on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday and addressed how close Parsons came to becoming an Eagle.
“There was no counteroffer,” Jones said. “The thought all along was to see where the interest level was, and that was very important. From the get-go, that was an effort on our part to drum up interest. That’s a part of what was going on. … Once that interest started really piquing, then you started having that phone ring, and that’s exactly what that plan was. … We had others call, the closer we got to the time we traded Micah, the more the phones started ringing.”
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Both teams should be happy with the early returns from the trade, with Parsons and Clark both having strong debuts.
Clark helped the Cowboys slow down last year’s rushing champion, Saquon Barkley, in a 24-20 loss at Philadelphia, while Parsons helped the Packers strangle a Detroit Lions offense that was among the NFL’s best last season in a 27-13 victory.
In a couple of weeks, the Cowboys will host Parsons and the Packers in an NFC prime-time clash at 7:20 p.m. Sept. 28 at AT&T Stadium on “Sunday Night Football” on NBC.
