The Dallas Cowboys closed the Micah Parsons chapter of their history after last month’s draft.
Acquiring two first-rounders and Kenny Clark from Green Bay, the Cowboys used the haul to make more trades and stockpile a woebegone defense. Ultimately, from the Parsons trade, they wound up with Clark, defensive lineman Quinnen Williams, outside linebacker Malachi Lawrence (23rd selection in 2026), cornerback Devin Moore (114th overall) and defensive lineman LT Overton (137th overall). The Cowboys are also giving the higher of their 2027 first-rounders to New York as part of the Williams deal.
Executive vice president Stephen Jones told Adam Schein on Mad Dog Sports Radio on Tuesday that he’s thrilled with how the trade worked out for Dallas.
“We feel really good about it,” he said. “Obviously, much respect for Micah and what he stands for and how he plays and the caliber of player he is, but at the same time we feel good about what we’ve added via that trade. You look at a guy like Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark, they’re alpha players who not only are great players on the field, but they’re leaders in the meeting room. How they go about their business in the offseason, [they] just bring great leadership to this team. As we mentioned, we add a guy like Caleb Downs, who is obviously the same type of character. He’s going to make everybody around him great. Everybody’s going to feed off of him. And then the pieces that we’ve added the last couple years. We’re fired up about (Donovan) Ezeiruaku, who was a second-round pick for us last year who I think it’s all in front of.
“I just feel very optimistic that we have the right pieces in place to go out there. Ultimately, the decision we made was that one player was not worth four or five good ones. We feel like that’s where we’re gonna end up here, in a good spot. We had that opportunity there and didn’t feel like we were one player away last year, but I certainly feel like we’re putting the pieces together to give us an opportunity to go do what our fans deserve, what we want, which is to go try and win the big trophy.”
The one player not being worth “four or five good ones” is a line the Cowboys have used repeatedly since shipping Parsons out of town after contract talks went sideways. No player acquired in the trade is likely to be as good as Parsons, but in the aggregate, Dallas believes they’ll come out ahead.
After last year’s disastrous defensive effort sank the squad, the Cowboys used the trade of their best defensive weapon to fill the gaps. If all those pieces coalesce, turn around the D under new coordinator Christian Parker and get Dallas to a place they haven’t gone in 30 years, you can bet the bravado surrounding the trade will be even stronger — we are, after all, still hearing about the Herschel Walker trade that happened in 1989.
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