Ryan Glasspiegel and I talked some Micah Parsons trade on the last Random Offense. Some of you subscribers DARED disagreed with me, America’s Foremost NFL writer.
The Official HoS position on the Dallas Cowboys’ Micah Parsons trade is simple: It was a good choice, after a series of bad choices led the franchise to this point. It’s drawn comparisons to that other big trade in Dallas, but dealing Dončić made little strategic sense. In contrast, a mediocre, overspent Cowboys exchanging their vaunted edge rusher for two first rounders and veteran DT Kenny Clark makes a lot of sense. If anyone believes it was a poor decision, at the exact time it happened, I’m open to hearing why here or on the BCC Chat.
The Cowboys were not winning the Super Bowl with or without Parsons, so why not get some picks? Why is getting draft capital worse for a rudderless team than making Parsons history’s richest non quarterback? What was the big upside to door Number 2?
Would it have been more optimal for the trade to have went down pre draft? Sure, but after that ship sails, you’re still left with, “What’s the best choice, given the current set of circumstances?” The 49ers sunk-cost-fallacy’d their way into overpaying receiver Brandon Aiyuk after they couldn’t consummate a pre draft trade in 2024. You can’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “prudent.” You don’t continue to hold the bag just because you should have let it go sooner.
You can claim Dallas could have gotten a better deal but as HoS friend John Middlekauff has pointed out, NFL players have undergone something of an NBAification. As in, football stars, via their agents, can dictate preferred location to a degree. This means that a select few teams were on a plausible list for Parsons, so it’s not as though the Cowboys were leveraging 31 franchises against each other. Jerry Jones may be grandiose and increasingly senile, but this was plausibly more or less the best trade on offer. Bottom feeding teams weren’t going to unload picks for an unhappy, possibly non compliant star.
While it’s probable that the Packers’ first rounders are likely late in the order, this isn’t the NBA. Bottom end first rounders often change franchises (Justin Jefferson, Lamar Jackson, TJ Watt). If you’re not sold on that chance, the picks can be packaged to yield a higher order first round selection.
These are the takes I’m solidly confident in, and now allow me to walk further out onto a limb: I also think Micah Parsons is overrated. The operative word here is “think,” because unlike with NBA basketball, much of NFL football away from the ball gets visually obscured.
We’re hearing a lot about how Micah is only 26, but his best season was the rookie year he spent at linebacker. The only example I can come up with where an edge exploded in his first season before tailing off was Jevon Kearse. I take it that Parsons is younger than the other top flight edges, but he’s got a back issue and the production trend line is not favorable.
Parsons clearly can rush the passer, which is valuable, but he’s reputed to be weak against the run, which makes sense given that he’s a 245 lbs DE. I’d add that, based on his own interviews, he appears to conceive of his job as almost wholly about getting sacks.
Sacks are valuable, but as with a lot of sports stats, there’s an aspect of Campbell’s Law:
The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.
As veteran edge Cameron Jordan has explained, there are players who snag reputation-boosting sacks while shirking team specific responsibilities. This has been alleged in regards to Parsons, but I’m in no position to determine the extent to which it’s so. I will say that, based on the circumstantial evidence, I’d bet there’s fire behind the smoke. Parsons brings value, but likely also slightly undermines impact by chasing a statistical indicator of value.
Then there’s the matter of Parsons underwhelming in his postseason career (4 games, 4 QB hits) and big matchups more generally. The NFL is a small sample size sport and perhaps this means little longterm, but…what’s up with that? I’m sure he was schemed for, a strategic concession that’s a value in of itself, but top end players are supposed to make their presence felt when it matters most. There could be exonerating explanations for the poor production, but I’ve yet to see one offered. It doesn’t mean that Parsons is fraudulent, but if NFL analysts are building up a player as, “the best pure pass rusher to enter the league in the last 20 years,” I’d like to know why that quality wasn’t there in the highest leverage moments.
None of this is to say that Parsons is bad, or without value. One reason I’m nervous about this take is that the Packers organization is superior to the Cowboys org. Green Bay has a need for Parsons, who could theoretically fit perfectly. They stand a chance at optimizing what Parsons does far better than the circus he’s escaped.
But…as the NFL transitions back to the rushing attack, as a way to punish defenses for going “two high,” I question teams investing so much in specialists. By rep, Parsons isn’t a run stopper or a coverage guy. He does one job, and fortunately, it’s a job the Packers need. I’m not entirely negative on Green Bay taking a swing here, but ultimately it’s a move I’m against. You can call me an idiot, a contrarian, or whatever else. What I am now, definitively, is someone who’ll be watching the Packers this season with a sense of skin the game.
100% agree with Ethan here. We live in an age of over-the-top media reactions to everything. Every trade is historically awful, every player is generational, and every outcome is dystopian. Yet, history teaches us that such reactions and any purported “consensus” are rarely even close to accurate in the end. These deals are complex, subject to numerous factors not in view, and difficult to assess without the passage of time. The future is unwritten and when it is, it will be different than what the media is shouting today.
The headlines screamed that the Bears had done it.... they had acquired a "generational talent" in Kahlil Mack. They had their answer...until they didn't. Two years later, Chicago writers wanted the Bears to unload him because he was suddenly disappointing and had a financial stranglehold over the ability of the organization to make necessary changes. Several recent retrospectives on the Mack transaction candidly acknowledge that the media got it wrong.
One way to identify histrionics is the use of empty calorie consensus language to describe the player. Several metrics have shown that Parsons is woeful against the run (just as Jerry suggested) and worse in the post season (just as Jerry suggested). Yet, article after article lazily uses the phrase "game wrecker" to describe Parson - as if that covers off on all sins. It seems that all you need is to use the cool kids’ terminology and your work is done. No intellectual heavy lifting is needed. Just learn to write "game wrecker" and remain smug and sanctimonious. Count me out.
Remember Jadeveon Clowney? Another disappointing player the media got wrong, who in the latter half of his career as he was cycling through one-year deals with multiple teams who never retained him (or worse, released him before the end of the year), the media kept writing , "yeah, he's not great as a pass rusher like we thought, but boy is he disruptive."
"Disruptive." What did that mean exactly? Nobody knew or bothered explaining.
It was the magic word that was needed to keep the lie about his disappointing performance alive for another season while deferring accountability for a bad initial take. You know it's over when the media inevitably goes dark when the player doesn't pan out. BTW...where is all the Clowney disruptor talk suddenly?
So, let's break this down. First, let's call out the big lie of the media. All this talk around "Jerry didn't get enough back" is a blatant and obvious falsehood. Not a single person advancing this line of reasoning believes that. It's a fake made up argument. There is no compensation that these people believe would adequately compensate for "the greatest pass rusher of the last 20 years." There is no deal Jerry could have done that would satisfy them.
So, let's stop making that ridiculous argument
This is a lie advanced by those in the media trying to present themselves as reasonable and honest brokers in the dialog when they're not. Don't be fooled.... they view the Parsons trade as akin to the Christians trading the Savior right before Easter. There is no adequate compensation in their minds if put under sodium pentothal.
So, how good is Parsons beyond the hyped branding and over the top monikers? All metrics are flawed to some degree but remain valuable as directional proxies. Let's look at Approximate Value from Pro Football Reference as one. When extrapolated to a full 17 games here are Parsons AV ratings in his first four years: 19.1; 19; 15; and 10.5.
Again, not a perfect stat, but notice a trend? His value has dropped 45% since his rookie season. It’s easy to ignore the trend when you keep putting out “in the first four years of his career” stats to hide the concerning trend. See, what really matters is the NEXT four years. The Reggie White comparisons are not apt. Here are White’s AV Ratings over only a 16 games season during his first seven seasons; 7, 19, 15 (over just 12 games), 19, 18, 17, and 19.
One thing I hope we can agree upon easily…Micah Parson ain’t Reggie White. Let’s also stop with that absurd comparison.
Parsons is 26 and despite what the objectors are suggesting, that is not young for the position. It is in fact the average age for an NFL linebacker whose careers are short. He's a one-dimensional player who now requires pain killers to get through Week 1 we are told. We are now also told that his Dallas teammates didn’t see him as a hard worker.... a troubling attribute for someone on the downhill side of the aging curve. With him, Dallas had one of the worst defenses in the NFL. While friends of mine will tell you that Green Bay's numbers were a bit of an illusion, they were still very good and in the top 10.
So, how many wins above replacement are we arguing he is worth now exactly? Instead of lazily saying "game wrecker" tell me how much all that game wrecking is worth in terms of WAR? 1? 1.5? Maybe 2? Green Bay won 11 games last year. How many will Parsons add? If you optimistically say two, that is still behind Detroit, Minnesota, and Philly from last season.
Hardly seems future altering, even for the best case. The Packers' future still rests in the hands of Jordan Love. Adding a few more sacks will not change their direction unless those other teams get worse.
While we're looking at numbers, could Dallas have even afforded the Green Bay contract? If not, we need to stop talking about this. If they couldn't, then Dallas had to move him. As Mike Tirico noted recently, "[s]o, you can't field another 50 (players) when your three are gaining 40, 42, 46, maybe even 50 percent of the cap." That's the funny thing about arithmetic. It remembers the past and holds you accountable.
Remember when these same media people now complaining about the Parsons trade were the same ones instructing the public that Jerry had to give Dak...and CeeDee Lamb a top-of-the-market "Bag?" Remember when we were told that those decisions to pay them were "obvious ones" by those lacking any appreciation of the financial restrictions of the game?
See, those earlier deals might have led directly to Parsons wearing dark green and gold today. Yeah, unlike with hot takes, arithmetic never forgets. It's incredible how few so-called NFL writers even discuss this foundational question.
The likely outcome here is that in four years both teams will look back at this transaction as disappointing. Again, these transactions are complicated and hard to predict but make no mistake about it - this transaction is super high risk for Green Bay. They need to at least get to a Super Bowl over the next two seasons, or this is a massive miss. After next year, the financial boa constrictor that is Parson's contract will thin the roster as he gets older and the Packers have fewer picks to fill in the holes.
Whatever your view of Parsons, Green Bay is now on the clock and Jerry will be fine...
This is basketball brain. Flipping sure talent for picks in a volatile sport like football is not the same. Sure you could get a Lamar Jackson. You could also get a Kenny Pickett.
There are stats that track quality pressures. Including pressures that beat double teams. Parsons has a multi-year run at the top of them. Sacks can be a noisy stat. Pressures are sustainable. From one of the best line play follows in the game; https://x.com/brandonthornnfl/status/1961464672470679623?s=46&t=TI0QVOiXa54sW8jrNkbVTg
Parsons is elite. And has been consistently elite, not “tailing off.” His run when coming back from injury last year was incredible on field play from a singular player on a defense. This is a peak player who will likely live at this peak for a couple more years at least. Also the knock on effect of the attention you have to pay to Parsons has a rising effect on the other 10 players. The rest of the rush ends up with more one on ones. The linebackers are more free to cheat back and get depth in coverage. Dallas maintained a mediocre defense with incredibly poor investment and bad injury luck due in larger part to Parsons’ orbit