The Dallas Cowboys' justification for trading All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers was that they could allocate the money that would have been spent on him toward making the defense a more well-rounded unit.
However, Jerry Jones' decision to trade for Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Jerry Porter Jr. may throw a wrench into that whole philosophy. Consider that Green Bay's market-resetting contract for Parsons pays him $46.5 million on average per season. The Cowboys' Porter and Quinnen Williams additions may exceed that value.
With Williams having signed a three-year, $105 million contract extension with the Cowboys, and Porter likely to command a salary in excess of $30 million if Dallas extends him, ESPN's Ben Solak noted that the Cowboys could pay just shy of $20 million more per year for those two players than they would have spent had they just kept Parsons.
Cowboys' Joey Porter Jr. trade looks odd after Micah Parsons saga
Even when acknowledging that Williams is one of the best in the game, Porter is the team's best defensive back, and Parsons now has injury concerns, even the biggest fans of Williams and Porter will concede that Parsons is the superior player, and his pass rush juice supercharges every defense he plays on.
Without Parsons, the defensive line and pass rush plan have suffered greatly.
Williams and fellow Parsons trade asset Kenny Clark have gotten off to slow starts this season in the eyes of Pro Football Focus, Rashan Gary has been borderline invisible, and youngsters Donovan Ezeiruaku and Malachi Lawrence are being forced to shoulder a bigger burden than they have to.
The Cowboys did bring in two studs in Williams and Porter, but they still have not found a middle ground in their talks with wide receiver George Pickens. Dallas' financial flexibility is somewhat limited going into the future.
Wasn't avoiding these contract squabbles and penny-pinching elsewhere on the roster the whole stated point of trading for Parsons?
Dallas still need to fix their defense after the Micah Parsons trade
At least the defense is cooking with all these new additions, right? Wrong! The aforementioned pass rush is lacking, the pre-Porter secondary is lacking in many key areas, and Christian Parker doesn't appear to be the instant quick fix at defensive coordinator many assumed he would be.
Parsons would have cost a ton, but he wouldn't have been so prohibitively strenuous on the team's financial situation that they would be incapable of adding to the defense. Why couldn't Jones keep Micah, go cheap on the defensive tackles, and still try to pull off the Porter trade?
The Cowboys could win fans back over by turning this defense around, doubly so if Porter ends up leading a bit of a turnaround in the secondary.
However, seeing No. 11 screaming off the edge and forcing offenses to warp their whole game plan around him made for some of the best Cowboys defenses in years, and their plan to recreate him in the aggregate for more money has failed so far.
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