Kirk Herbstreit knows it’s a different approach to analyzing the Cowboys’ stunning Micah Parsons trade.
The ESPN college football and Amazon Prime Video “Thursday Night Football” analyst understands it could be perceived as a crazy take.
But Herbstreit supported the Cowboys for making the trade and sending Parsons — one of the NFL’s premier pass rushers who’s just 26 years old — to the Packers on Thursday in exchange for two first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark, a seismic move that also featured Green Bay handing Parsons a four-year, $188 million extension.
“If they’re ever going to be a real contender, not only in their division, but the NFC, they’ve got to get better defensively,” Herbstreit said Friday during a “Get Up” segment on ESPN. “Now you say, ‘How do you get better by losing Micah Parsons?’ I think you’re just looking at that like physically what he does, but what does he do behind the scenes to the culture of who the Dallas Cowboys are?
“For Dallas not willing to sign him, it must have been significant enough to say, ‘Hey, let’s get rid of this guy even though he’s a great player, and let’s try to build this thing kind of like the little engine that could, us-against-the-world type of thing.’ And I know it sounds crazy, but I applaud Dallas in letting him go and trying to build a culture of team instead of an individual. And we’ll see what happens with Dallas this year. But I don’t think this is a play for 2025. I think it’s a play for ’25, ’26, ’27 and beyond.”
Even with plenty of key pieces — especially on offense — returning, the Cowboys pivoted following a disappointing 7-10 record last year and brought in Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach.
But for most of the offseason, and especially as training camp began, everything in Dallas has been overshadowed by Parsons’ contract saga.
The star edge rusher, who collected 52.5 sacks across his first four seasons, wanted a new contract, and a holdout ensued.
Parsons requested a trade Aug. 1, and at the Cowboys’ final preseason game, he ate nachos pregame and rested — while laying down — on a medical table during the game.
And the standoff between Parsons and Dallas owner Jerry Jones featured press conferences and other media appearances that offered conflicting realities of the tenuous relationship.
In a press conference following the trade, Jones rationalized the decision as one that was “by design” and “in the best interest of our organization.”
“I mean, if you’re just going to look at it from the Xs and Os standpoint, you lose a great player physically and obviously he can take a game over,” Herbstreit said Friday. “But I look at this in a different way. This is a new coach trying to build a new culture, and your alpha, your best player is sitting out in a negotiation that’s not working out. And not only that, but just some of the optics of it with some of the things he did during camp, it just wasn’t good.
“I think at this point, it’s probably best to just give him his opportunity to go to another franchise, and then Dallas can almost start over as far as inside the building, the culture of trying to build this thing from the ground up defensively.”
The Cowboys open up the season with a Week 1 game against the Eagles on Thursday.