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Todd ArcherSep 12, 2025, 04:49 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Todd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Dallas Cowboys. Archer has covered the NFL since 1997 and Dallas since 2003. He joined ESPN in 2010.<\/p>\n FRISCO, Texas — As Micah Parsons<\/a> spoke following the Green Bay Packers<\/a>‘ win against the Washington Commanders<\/a> Thursday, the fans had a message for Dallas Cowboys<\/a> owner and general manager Jerry Jones.<\/p>\n “Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Jerry,” they chanted.<\/p>\n Speaking Friday at The Star, Jones acknowledged the risk involved in trading away the Pro Bowl pass rusher but expressed no regret.<\/p>\n “If anybody doesn’t think that this is rolling the dice, I don’t know what rolling the dice looks like,” Jones said. “You make decisions like this and the consequences usually when they have this type of critique or this type of impact, you’re not out here playing pinochle. You really aren’t if you’re taking risk. And we all are there, and if it weren’t risk then you wouldn’t have so many people probably disagreeing with my decision.”<\/p>\n When Jones acquired Charles Haley from the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> in 1992, he said the Cowboys couldn’t spell Super Bowl without Haley. Does he worry he’s done the same for the Packers in sending them Parsons?<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks “I worried when we did Herschel Walker to Minnesota<\/a>. Of course,” Jones said. “A great player, I’ve had some real success with great players. Deion Sanders and I would put Charles Haley in there too, OK. But we also know there was a lot of other supporting cast around Deion and a lot of supporting cast around Charles Haley, too. I weighed that [in the Parsons’ trade]. I did that for months around here, weighing that very good.”<\/p>\n The Cowboys acquired the Packers’ two first-round picks in 2026 and 2027 as well as defensive tackle Kenny Clark<\/a> for Parsons.<\/p>\n “Remember you cannot have it all. You just cannot have it all,” Jones said. “There’s not room to have it all. And so looking at how this best suits us over these next three or four years, and this year as well, that’s where Kenny Clark is such a big deal. I wouldn’t talk to anybody that didn’t have a serious football player ready to go for us.”<\/p>\n Jones said the benefits of getting multiple players from the picks as well as the potential to retain players were big to him. He also said the Cowboys could alter their approach to free agency without Parsons’ contract tied into what the team is paying Prescott ($60 million) and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb<\/a> ($34 million). They have not made a major free agent signing since 2012 when they signed cornerback Brandon Carr<\/a> to a five-year, $50 million deal.<\/p>\n “Hitting this cap, we’re talking about of upwards of $200 million,” Jones said. “Now there’s lots of room in $200 million to go through over a period of time. What I’m doing with you is covering several years over these next four years.”<\/p>\n From buying the Cowboys and hiring Jimmy Johnson in 1989, Jones has lived with risk.<\/p>\n “Well, I don’t do it for fun. And I can wear tension, which goes with risk,” Jones said. “I hate to use the old adage but that ‘riverboat gambler.’ The riverboat gambler when on the next card [he] may own the boat and he’s charming or they may throw him in the river, according to which way that card went. And that’s when he’s his very best, not when he knows what’s going to happen. But let me tell you one damn thing, that riverboat gambler knows how to swim because he’s been throwed in there before, OK.<\/p>\n “And so that’s the trick: Don’t pull that off if you can’t swim.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Todd ArcherSep 12, 2025, 04:49 PM ET CloseTodd Archer is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-156316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/r1544267_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=center.jpeg\")
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