In return, Dallas receives ample capital while delivering a confusing message regarding the club’s immediate ambition under first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer. Perhaps even more importantly to Cowboys leadership, by sending Parsons to Green Bay, Dallas is silencing the persistent noise that followed Parsons and the entire organization throughout 2025.
Thursday’s deal between the Cowboys and Packers brings a conclusion to a saga that dragged through the offseason into training camp and the preseason. It included daily attendance updates, a detailed public trade request and even a controversy about whether he fell asleep on a sideline training table during Dallas’ preseason finale. Throughout the prolonged drama, the football world expected the Cowboys and Parsons to eventually come to an agreement.
Instead, they’re agreeing to go their separate ways.
Parsons joins a Green Bay defense that has attempted to beef up its pass-rushing unit over the last few years but hasn’t seen consistent results, finishing 20th in the NFL in quarterback pressure rate (32.3%) last season, per Next Gen Stats. Rashan Gary has been the team’s best quarterback hunter but clearly needs a running mate to allow the unit to blossom under defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley.
Instead of acquiring a sidekick, Gary and the Packers are welcoming an apex predator into their den.
Meanwhile, after spending nine seasons with the Packers, Clark heads south to a Cowboys team that needed a proven veteran to beef up the defensive front. Over two seasons, the Cowboys haven’t received anything near the return they expected when they drafted Michigan defensive tackle Mazi Smith in the first round in 2023. Though Smith survived final cuts this week, he spent much of the preseason playing into the second half of games and was seen as a weakness entering 2025.
Clark’s arrival upgrades the position and solves the problem for 2025, in which he’ll likely line up alongside Osa Odighizuwa along the Dallas defensive interior.
Parsons was the focus of the last notable contract dispute between a player and team this summer. Thursday’s trade ends the dispute, adding Parsons to a group of formerly disgruntled players who received new or adjusted deals, including edge rushers Myles Garrett, T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson and receiver Terry McLaurin. Garrett, Hendrickson and McLaurin each requested trades, but worked out deals to stay put.
Parsons’ trade and subsequent extension marks the fourth time the edge rusher market has been reset in 2025, a year in which the wildly active landscape produced new deals for Las Vegas’ Maxx Crosby, Garrett and Watt, plus a one-year raise for Hendrickson.
The true gem of the group, though, was Parsons, a 26-year-old with limitless potential worth the sacrifice of two first-round picks in a deal that is the first Packers trade to include a first-round pick since they acquired Brett Favre from Atlanta in 1992. With roughly one week before the start of the regular season, Parsons will pack his bags and leave Dallas for his new digs, where expectations will skyrocket upon his arrival.