So we just went to Green Bay. Where everyone is giddy like Christmas Day. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Now, let's get some reaction out of Dallas. I can only imagine. What it's like on social media down there. I can only imagine what it is like on sports talk radio. And all of the things that Saad Youssef of the Athletic has heard over the last 24 hours about the Dallas Cowboys.
Saad Agresh here, how are you? And my God, Jerry actually did it. I can't believe it. Yeah, I mean, that's a very prevalent reaction, honestly, throughout Dallas, Fort Worth, and really a lot of Dallas media as well. We all kind of.
Saw everything that was being said, this the traits. Quest, all that stuff. At the end of the day, though, I think we all thought that this deal was going to end up being done. Um we did not and I don't think anybody expected that Micah Parson would be traded. Jerry Jones just does not trade his superstar players.
There's no precedent for this in the history of the organization. There's a lot of patterns of the opposite, which is him holding on too long to his star players. But I've never seen anything like this from the Jerry Jones Cowboys. This is the first. Saad, to the best of your knowledge, did Jerry Jones shop?
Micah Parsons, or is this more like Luka Doncic 2.0 where it was one team really involved and that was it and it was clandestine for no one else to know.
Well, I think this situation is a little bit in between. I don't think it was one team. I don't think it was just the Green Bay Packers. But it wasn't the entire league. really you know there's two different situations with Nico Harrison and the Mavericks That was complete malpractice.
It was just a terrible job. On his part. With Jerry Jones, it wasn't so much the shopping around that was his problem. The problem with him was the timing that he tried to do it. If you're trying to do this in March and April, The rest of the league has a lot more cap space before free agency.
They have draft picks before the April draft. When you're trying to do this one week before the regular season begins, when teams are already, you know, not only have they spent all their money, they've even cut down their rosters to 53 at this point. When you're trying to do it there, you're automatically shrinking the pool that you have for the options to do this. And so I think it was kind of by, you know, by default that he didn't have as many options throughout the league. I still don't think it was just the Green Bay Packers.
All of a sudden, you're now looking for a team that not only has the assets to trade for Micah Parsons, but also has a cap space to extend him beyond this year.
So, to the best of your knowledge, Saad, how ugly did it get? Because Jerry Jones tried to circumvent the agent. It feels like at that point It was either going to be somebody was going to, you know, cave in and give Michael Parsons what he wanted, or something like this was going to happen. That's the part of this that is really unconscionable to me. I can't believe the NFLPA has not issued a statement on this, but how much did that really drive to this moment of Michael Parsons becoming a Green Bay Packer?
To me, I think it was everything. I think, you know, the Cowboys have the cap space, they have the ability to extend Micah Parsons. That was never the issue. I do think that it came all down to just the egos involved. Jerry has a famous quote: you know, I grew up in Dallas, even before I was a reporter for.
28 years. And a common quote that I've always heard from Jerry Jones is: don't let your money get mad. And I think Jerry Jones let his money get mad in this situation because I think, you know, if it wasn't with everything involved with the agent, there weren't that many differences in terms of what the Micah Parsons wanted and what the Cowboys wanted, which was to continue the partnership in Dallas. But, you know, You know, where it really reached fever pitch for me was this past week when Micah Parsons' agent reached out to the Cowboys again and said, all right, let's continue negotiating in earnest. Let's look for a common ground here.
And at that point, Jerry Jones basically slammed the door shut on Micah Parsons' extension and said, no, at this point, you're playing on the fifth year extension. And I think that was the breaking point. And that is when trade talks really began. Wow, that is uh that's pretty amazing.
So how has the locker room taken this news? You know, we were in the locker room today, and you know, today was technically a Monday for the Cowboys since they play a Thursday game, which is not a heavy locker room. Presence day. We talked to a couple of the rookies.
Well, Don Vanozaraku, one of the rookies, and a second-year player, Marshawn Nealon. They're taking it fine. To me, the way that I interpret Micah's kind of locker room presence, it wasn't so much that I don't think that his. Uh his departure is gonna leave this just gigantic wound that that just you know go permeates throughout the entire locker room. Micah Parsons had a few really close friends in the locker room.
And I think for those people, it will hurt quite a bit. I'm talking like guys like Trayvon Diggs in particular. But I don't think that he had this hold on the locker room the way that I think, you know, say a Dak Prescott would. I think that is a completely different territory that the Cowboys don't have to worry about because that's just the nature of the way Micah's relationship was in the locker room. Uh what about I mean, Brian Schottenheimer, my God, like...
What a bomb to have dropped on you. I know that he signed up for it, but there is the part of me that still does feel bad for the guy. How does he, I don't know, how do you message this inside the room without saying, well, you know, the crazy old man upstairs is up to his tricks. What am I to do? Like, that's what it feels like he should say.
I know he's not going to say that. How in the world does Brian Schottenheimer try to keep this football team moving forward and motivated with what they have? Yeah, that's a good question. And look, there's not a whole lot that we know yet about Brian Schottenheimer as a head coach. He hasn't made his regular season debut, but I will say the one thing that has do know about about him is that he's really good In maintaining relationships, he's really good.
At communicating with his players and even with the higher-ups in the organization. That's a big reason why he got the job that he did. They really were looking. For him to call the offense, but I think when he went in for that interview, he impressed them so much that they gave him the head coaching job. The reason why I say that is because I think that part is really not gonna be that difficult for Brian Schottenheimer.
He's really good at being upbeat positive. Up until literally two days ago, we sat in a press conference and he said that he had full confidence. that Micah Parsons was gonna be on the field against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday. I think he says all the right things. He knows how to go about it.
I think the real challenge is going to be when it comes to scheming and things on the field. That is where it's really going to take a big hit for him and Matt Eberfluz, the defensive coordinator. But in terms of maintaining that stuff in the locker room, out of this entire chaotic situation that's been unfolding in the last four months, I think that's the one thing that I have the least concerns about. Wow, that's very interesting just in terms of that whole dynamic down there. I'm sure there are going to be times as a head coach, he's going to be rolling his eyes with some of the stuff with Jerry Jones.
Saad, I want to ask you about the younger fan, right?
Someone brought this up to me. that if you're Like my wife's cousin Chuck, who's 62 years old, you might remember Jerry Jones with Jimmy Johnson a little differently. But if you were born in, say, 2000 All you've seen is, you know, inconsistency and sort of up-and-down actions from Jerry Jones. Is Jerry Jones running the risk of alienating the young Cowboys fan, especially now that you do the one thing that fans hate, which is trade a superstar? Yeah, I think absolutely he's running that risk.
I'll speak from For myself, I'm 1995 born, and you know, for me, one of my earliest memories of the Cowboys was him handing Chad Hutchinson like a seven-year contract to play quarterback for the Cowboys.
So I've never seen the glory days, I've never seen what that's like. And I think. Right now, that's you know, it's funny because they just dropped this documentary on Netflix about the 90s, the gambler and his cowboys, Jerry Jones. And I just think the timing is really interesting with all this because, you know, You know, that's focused on the 90s. It talks all about.
You know, Jerry in the glory days. And a big topic in that documentary was the Herschel Walker trade. And when I look at the way that Jerry's been operating this summer, I feel a lot of it has been operating on nostalgia, trying to rekindle that 90s, except that I think the NFL has kind of passed it by at this point. There's a salary cap that other teams are. Are a lot more able to keep pace, and Jerry is not able to be a frontrunner the way that he was in the 90s.
And I think that's really, you know, kind of a conflict here for Jerry because you're right, I do think that he is alienating a lot of those younger fans. And I don't think that you have to be as young as 2000. Like I said, if you're even in the 90s, this drought has been going on for 30 years. It has been a long time since the Cowboys have even been in an NFC championship game.
So, yeah, they are running that risk. But On the other hand, while we say all of that. Yesterday, or I think it was two days ago, Forbes releases a report. Where the Cowboys are still the most valuable franchise in the world, and they're a distant first place in that. And I think for Jerry Jones, that's his Super Bowl.
I think that is what matters most. And as long as that number keeps going up, As it as it does. I I don't think too much else is gonna change. Saad, is there anything good about this that you can sell us on? Like, I know that Jerry Jones is going to put perfume on the pig.
But is there any silver lining, any one pot? Like, is there anything good that comes out of this, in your opinion? Sure. I mean, you know, I don't think trading Micah Parsons is like the craziest thing ever. I really don't, to be honest with you.
A lot of people comparing this to like the Luka Doncich trade, and I don't even think they're in the same galaxy. I mean, trading Luka Doncich was a, was it just a, I mean, it was an inexcusable thing that the Mavericks did. I understand wanting to trade Micah Parsons.
Now, the process of how we got there is what is the big issue. Like I said, the timing of it. The smearing the agent in public when that's the same agent that represents George Pickens, who you're gonna try to extend next year in the offseason. There's a lot. That they mishandled in the process of this.
But yeah, I don't think trading Micah Parsons is necessarily the end of the world. The Cowboys, they weren't one superstar pass rusher away from being a Super Bowl contender. I mean, before Micah Parsons was traded, we all thought he was gonna stay in Dallas, and we were all still picking them to win eight or nine games this season.
So it's not like it's the end of the world.
So I think that's one silver line that you take from it. The other thing is How are they going to manage these first-round picks?
Now, Green Bay is most likely going to be successful, and these are going to be bottom of the first-round picks, but Hell, the Cowboys might be in the first half of the first round. And do they package those to? Know, move up in the draft? Do they get players that can make an instant impact in the Dak Prescott window? I think those are all the kind of questions that you're going to be looking at.
And to be honest with you, Their deepest position in training camp this year probably was defensive end.
So losing Micah Parsons is not a death blow to them necessarily, but that's because this wasn't something their whole hopes weren't riding on Micah being there. They weren't very good of a football team, even with Micah in the fold. They got run off the field by Micah's now Packers in 2023 when they were a top seed, a second seed in the NFC.
So the Cowboys haven't been close to a Super Bowl. And losing Micah Parsons doesn't make them any closer, but it doesn't necessarily take them out of where they were already, which was a.
Solid playoff team. All right, well, hopefully everything calms down now down there in Dallas and the wacky trades stop and things like that. Saad Youssef of the Athletic breaking it all down from Dallas in the belly of the beast. Saad, thank you for the time. Great conversation.
Appreciate the intel. Have a good season. Of course. Thanks for having me.
