Former Stanford Cardinal Richard Sherman Has Thoughts on Micah Parsons Trade

While everyone awaits the beginning of the NFL season, the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers swung a big trade--sending Micah Parsons from Dallas to Green Bay in exchange for two first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Former Stanford Cardinal Richard Sherman took to his podcast recently to share his own take on this wild trade.

"Jerry [Jones] has done it again. He's shocked the world--with insanity." He also mentioned the extension that the Packers handed out to Parsons that really made this a great deal for them, at four years, $188 million with $136 million guaranteed.

"This changes the dynamic of that team drastically. Throws them deep into the contender conversation. One of their huge weaknesses was just getting to the passer and being consistent on defense. They've got a game wrecker in Micah Parsons."

Last season the Packers finished at 11-6, third in the NFC North, and lost in the Wild Card round to the Philadelphia Eagles, 22-10. Overall, the team ranked eighth in points scored among all 32 NFL teams, and sixth in the league in points allowed. They're starting from a pretty good spot already, but adding Parsons will help them against some of those elite teams comes playoff time.

"It leaves the Cowboys with a head-scratching pass rush" Sherman continued. "They didn't have a great pass rush last year. Micah Parsons misses four games, still ends up with 12 sacks, 75 pressures. And now you say, 'hey we got two first round picks.' That doesn't help you now. You have your franchise quarterback now. The window is just closing, slowly, slowly, slowly."

To Sherman's point, Parsons finished with 12 sacks last year in just 13 games played, and those 12 sacks were right in line with his typical production from the past three seasons. He'd finished with 13, 13.5 and 14 from 2021-23. One could even argue that he was more consistent at getting to the quarterback last year, even though he missed a few games.

Sherman goes on to question why, after going above the market to sign Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, would Cowboys owner Jerry Jones then pump the breaks on the four-time Pro Bowler in Parsons? He even thinks that if they had gotten an extension done earlier, then they would have been able to save a decent amount of money.

"When Bosa got paid, they could have got Parsons at $34, maybe $35 million per year. He would have been happy, everyone would have been happy. Maybe they'd be arguing that he'd be up for an extension or something now, but you'd have him."

Now that this deal is done, the landscape for the upcoming season has certainly changed.