Did Cowboys counteroffer Eagles on Micah Parsons trade?
On Thursday evening, the Dallas Cowboys dropped to 0-1 with a narrow road loss to the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles to kick off this NFL season. Three days later, the Green Bay Packers picked up a huge home win over the Detroit Lions to get their own campaign underway, with Micah Parsons recording a sack in his first game on the Packers.
Parsons of course was traded from Dallas to Green Bay just days before the season got underway, sending a slew of criticism in the direction of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
According to reports, the Eagles themselves once had interest in acquiring Parsons from Dallas, and recently, Jones clarified whether or not the Cowboys ever made a counteroffer to Philadelphia's initial bid.
“No counter offer,” said Jones, per Josh Alper of NBC Sports' Pro Football Talk.
As painful as it was to see Parsons suit up for the Green Bay Packers, who eliminated the Cowboys from the playoffs the last time they made it back in 2023, it would have been twice as excruciating for Cowboys fans to see him take the field as a member of the bitter rival Eagles.
A rough start for the Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys' offense mostly looked good in their Week 1 loss to the Eagles, but the defense predictably struggled to put much of any pressure on quarterback Jalen Hurts, and when they did, they were powerless to stop him from slipping out of the pocket and running the ball down the field.
Overall, the Cowboys are in a bit of an awkward space right now, not bad enough to all-out tank considering some of the talent still on their roster, but clearly not good enough to compete for anything meaningful this year.
Having an owner who has openly admitted to prioritizing attention over putting together a winning football team certainly doesn't help matters in that department.
In any case, the Cowboys will look to pick up their first win of the season on Sunday when they host the New York Giants at 1:00 PM ET from AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Packers’ Colby Wooden Fires Back at Critics After Dominant Run Defense Performance
Micah Parsons, a contrarian opinion had taken hold, too–the Packers defense would get chewed up in the running game.Three days before the Packers were to play the Detroit Lions in their 2025 opener, defensive lineman Colby Wooden got a phone call. It was his father. While much attention had been foisted on the Packers in recent days after the stunning trade for pass-rusher
The Packers had to trade away stalwart defensive lineman Kenny Clark to acquire Parsons, and the feeling was, that would be costly in the team’s efforts to handle the run. Detroit, after all, rushed for 2,488 yards last season, sixth in the NFL. Without Clark, surely the Packers would be in trouble.
Wooden, who is helping replace Clark in the middle, took the call from his dad, who said, “Do me a favor, shut ‘em up.”
And he, along with the entire Packers defensive front, did just that, holding the Lions to 46 yards on 22 carries, their lowest rushing output since Week 6 in 2023. Wooden, Devonte Wyatt and Karl Brooks held the line admirably in the middle all day for the Packers.
Colby Wooden: ‘I Took That Personal’
Wooden, for one, was insulted by the questions about the team’s inability to hold against the run.
“I for sure took that personal …” Wooden said. “So I just, did my job, went out there, stopped the run. I took it personal. Honestly, I felt like it was kinda disrespectful, like, ‘Oh, they gonna run the ball.’ So I made it my mission—we, excuse me—we made it our mission to shut them down.”
That’s not easy to do against the combo of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, nicknamed Sonic and Knuckles.
“We know what they want to do,” Wooden said. “Last year, they wanted to run. They call them Sonic and Knuckles, or whatever. They want to run them 30 times. So we know they want to run that ball. We’ve got to do our job to stop the run so they can get back and let (Parsons) go get them.”
Packers Filling Roles With Micah Parsons on Board
Wooden said the effect of having Parsons on the field was obvious, and it works both ways. When offenses focus on corralling Parsons, the other Packers must step up.
“Everybody’s got a job to do, everybody got a role,” Wooden said. “Everybody’s got to buy into their role. We know what attention and what he comes with. And we know we got to stop that run, go help him out, if he is getting is getting chipped, doubled or whatever, now it’s somebody else’s turn to win their one-on-one.”
Packers Have Commanders Next
And despite the obviously encouraging results, Wooden is not getting ahead of himself. The Commanders will be next on the docket, with fearsome young quarterback Jayden Daniels on hand.
“It’s just one week,” Wooden said. “It’s Week 1. It’s great to start off with a win, dominate. But we’ve got to keep it going. We got a good team coming here on Thursday, we know we got to be ready to stop that run and contain that quarterback. So we just gotta keep going, keep getting better, keep jelling.”
