The Dallas Cowboys still haven't built a great defense in the aftermath of the Micah Parsons trade, and he was dominant in his first year with the Green Bay Packers. However, if this trade was ever going to age poorly for Green Bay, their Week 1 choke job showed exactly what the problems of this mega-deal entailed.
What was a 22-10 Packers lead in the middle of the third quarter against a Minnesota Vikings team that was reduced to Carson Wentz under center ended up as a 39-22 Vikings victory, as the defense wilted away. Parsons, of course, sat out, as he recovers from an ACL injury suffered near the end of the 2025 season.
The Packers have played six games without Parsons for a majority of the contest, and they have lost all six of them. Parsons has been every bit as good as the Packers could have hoped for, but they gutted their defense and stockpile of resources to acquire him, and without him in the mix, their short-term future looks grim.
Cowboys' Micah Parsons trade slowly starting to age poorly for Packers
The Packers' defense is not great outside of Parsons, even after they made that trade. Devonte Wyatt is far from a difference-maker, and he's Green Bay's best non-Parsons defensive lineman. The cornerback room remains a poorly constructed, shallow group, and mastermind Jeff Hafley has left after taking the Dolphins' head coaching gig.
Parsons' injury has deprived the Packers of their biggest force-multiplier, and now they are banking on him being the same type of dominant player he was to begin his career the second he returns to game action. The trade made Green Bay go all-in on Parsons, and while they appeared to make out like bandits last season, the Packers' defense looks wholly incomplete without him.
No one looked at the Matt Eberflus-led unit from last year and a very young Christian Parker group in 2026 and said that the Cowboys' roster is in a better place than it would have been with a homegrown superstar (a term that is not used lightly) in Parsons. However, the 2026 season may look rosier for Dallas than it does for Green Bay.
The Cowboys can rebuild with the assets from the Micah Parsons trade
The Cowboys were able to land Kenny Clark, who has recently been extended, a promising young pass rusher in Malachi Lawrence, and were able to send some other assets previously acquired in the trade to the Jets as part of the Quinnen Williams contract. If Lawrence hits the ground running, more than half of Dallas' starting defensive line will be locked in.
The Cowboys will eventually need to find someone who could perhaps have a Parsons-like impact on this defense before they can be called the winners of this trade, but they have the benefit of not having their entire defensive competence tied up in one player.
We know, we know. Christian Parker had a shockingly bad debut. Lot of things to clean up, but that does not change the narrative of the Parsons trade overnight.
If that is what Jerry Jones wanted to avoid with the Parsons trade, consider that bullet well and truly dodged.
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