August 28, 2025 • 23 mins
Gregg Rosenthal and Daniel Jeremiah give their reactions to the blockbuster trade that sent Micah Parsons from Dallas to the Green Bay Packers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to a special breaking news episode of Forties and
Free Agents. I am here Greg Rosenthal with my friend
Daniel Jeremiah just minutes after one of the biggest trades
in NFL history. We can call it that, Micah Parsons
is going to the Green Bay Packers in exchange for
(00:24):
two first round picks and veteran Kenny Clark. On top
of that, he signed a four year, one hundred and
eighty eight million dollar contract with one hundred and thirty
six million dollars guaranteed. It is good to be Micah Parsons,
and it is good to be Daniel Jeremiah who gets
to do a breaking news podcast with yours. Truly, this
is gonna be fun. Like what was your first reaction?
(00:46):
Where were you when you saw this?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I was I just got back from lunch and
I was in the family room and I got on
my phone. This is what's This is the scale I
we'll use for how big of a story it is.
It was an at wrap sheet tweet and I did
a triple It was a triple check of is this
am I getting fooled here? I don't want to retweet
(01:08):
this if this is not authentic and it was like, oh, yeah, this,
this really happened. So that was my first reaction. My
second reaction was I was on an interview yesterday and
was asked about this, and I said, you know, I
kind of perked up a little bit when they asked
Brian gudakinst at the press conference yesterday about it. I speak,
I'm fluent in GM. I speak fluent GM. I know
(01:30):
exactly how they handle and answer every single question, and
it's all right out of a playbook. And anytime anybody
ever asked you about a player on another team or
opportunity or potential trade, the stock GM answer you get
every single time is you know what, I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna comment on any other players, you know,
worried about the guys we have in our room. Blah
blah blah blah blah. That's standard stock answer. You never
(01:50):
give it any any light whatsoever. And he said, and
he's quoted even I think before this what we saw yesterday,
which was, hey, if we have an opportunity, we're willing
to you know, we're willing to part with picks and
we're willing to live. And I'm like, that is far
from what the normal answer is in that situation, my
ears perked up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, they were right to perk up, because Ian Rappaport,
who Yeah put the news out, said that the terms
of the deal I believe between Parsons and the Packers
were done two days ago, and I think they were
figuring out the compensation in the meantime. I ultimately think
(02:30):
it's bad business to trade a player that I believe
is the best pure pass rusher of the last twenty
years to enter the league.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
You could make an argument for.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Von Miller or Miles Garrett, and that's fine, but just
in terms of came into the league and was immediately
a complete difference maker as a pass rusher. He finished
second in Defensive Player of the Year, not Rookie the
Year Player of the Year as a rookie and has
maintained that high level for three seasons. I would say
last season was a little bit of a step back.
(03:01):
Room was at one hundred percent healthy. I think it
is bad business not to just get the deal done
with Micah Parsons and avoid all that, because if you
think about it, DJ the Packers were not only willing
to give him that contract, he was worth enough to
give him that contract and two first round picks. So
I think that says something about the type of player
(03:22):
that he is. And I think it's bad business for
the Cowboys. But for the Packers, we've been asking for
them to add a little more juice. This.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
This is a little more juice. This is a lot
more juice.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
There's so many different angles to hit this on. So
I guess I'll try and narrow my thoughts. So let's
do Packers and then we'll get the Cowboys. So I'll
start on the Packers side of things. I always talk
to guys in the personnel departments and leadership when we
get to the offseason. You know, whether it's at All
Star games, combine phone calls before the draft, you know
what are your team needs, what are you looking for?
You know, you know kind of where you are in
(03:53):
your process. And the thing I got from the Packers
was we love all the talent we have on defense.
We have a lot of young guys. We have We've
invested a lot of high picks in front seven players.
We think we've got some really really good football players.
We don't know that we have that blue level player,
which we call like a blue chip guy who's you know,
that's the highest of the high one of somebody who's
(04:15):
a top three to five player at their position in
the league. They felt like that a lot of guys
kind of in that their top we're top ten to
fifteen players at their position. We don't have a top
three to five guy at his position, and we don't
have a player that we felt if we go into
a big game that the opponent is circling and going,
we have to game plan and scheme around this player.
(04:35):
So we really want to get an impact player. We
really want a blue level player. And their thing to
me was our hope is that some of our existing
guys can maybe evolve into that and be those guys,
but we have to be real with ourselves that they're
not there at this point in time. So this clearly
checks that box. That's the first thing. The second thing
is I'm a huge believer in understanding your windows and
(04:58):
understanding what phase are you in right now?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Is this a.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Hey, we're trying to get from okay to good phase,
Like let's be a little bit smart and savvy with
our moves. Is this a little bit of a tear down? Hey,
we got to go down to go back up, or
is this We're this close, Greg, and let's be bold
and let's be aggressive and let's go for it. And
I feel like with Jordan Love where he is in
his ascension with a system and coaching staff offensive with
(05:24):
it's in place. They're looking at all these young defensive
players and they said it's go time. And I love
that because I think that's the proper I think that
was a proper identification of where their team is.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And a peek behind the curtain for the listeners wondering
why are we doing the breaking news episode.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Look, we taped a couple episodes earlier.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Today you're going to hear forties of free agents where
we draft who could be the Super Bowl champion. Well
that was blown up, so we had to get together
to fix that. Well we might as well just do
the breaking news. And one of the points I thought
that you made a good point about the Packers when
you saw them spend money on Aaron Banks an interior alignment,
like that was a move that teams make when they
think they're really close. But this is like another level
(06:04):
to the Aaron Banks move, and I love it. I
do love it because now Rashan Gary is their second.
Like they still have talented players up front, but now
Rashan Gary is in a more supplementary role. Lucas van
Ness who they like, and he can be the number
three guy there like it helps out the guys on
the interior and DeVante Wyatt.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So there's a lot of people that are helped out
by this trade.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
All right, Can I give Eric homework?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
By the way, that's our producer.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes, I'm a lot of your producer Eric homework. Just
by the time we end the time we end this
little conversation, can we get Micah Parsons career numbers against
the Philadelphia Eagles. I'd be curious about that because this
also does feel like you went out and got Aaron
Banks to block Jalen Carter, a team that you have
to get through to get to a Super Bowl out
of the NFC. Now you go out and get Micah Parsons,
who's going to be extremely familiar with with Philly and
(06:51):
obviously he's a great player. An elite player at elite
position is going to work against any team. But as
you're trying to get over the hump, and I think
that everybody that's in the NFC clearly has the Philadelphia Eagles,
you know, in their sights, that's who you're trying to
That's who you got to get by. It's who you
got to beat. So I absolutely love it from the
Green Bay side of things in terms of the picks.
Two first round picks Kenny Clark, which I was a
(07:14):
little surprised, the Cowboys and we'll get to them that
they didn't want an edge guy, you know, because you're
losing one, bring one in, but they do have some
depth there. You're going to have him and Odiga Zua. Again,
we'll get to the Cowboys. But I love it from
the Packers' standpoint. To me, it's I'm always going to
be optimistic on picks that they're going to be late picks.
Everybody's optimistic about how the team they have and how
(07:35):
this player is going to come in and give them
a late pick. Whereas the Cowboys side of things, I
like lottery tickets on bad teams. I don't like the
lottery tickets on really really good teams. I'd almost rather
know what I'm getting In terms of where the picks are.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, and you know, I'll do respect to the players
I'm mentioning, but like, think of the last first round picks,
late first round picks for the Packers. Lucas van Ness
is one of them, qua Walker is one of them.
DeVante Whyett is one of them. Solid players. But you're
not drafting at the top of the first round, and
you're not planning to be drafting at the top of
(08:10):
the first round when you trade for Micah Parsons, So.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
You're not fine Michah Parsons in the late twenties, I
can tell you right.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Even the fact he slipped as far as he did,
good job by Dallas, but ultimately you're giving up some
of that. There are historical precedents. I mean, of course
you think of just like Reggie White coming to the Packers,
but that's a different situation. But in terms of a trade,
the terms are not crazy different to the Khalil Mack
trade to the Bears back in the day where the
(08:39):
Raiders got to firsts Now they did send a second
back and they got a third. So it's a little
more complicated with Kenny Clark involved, but essentially to first
was part of it. I think Parsons, like I said,
is another level of player which is hard to say
than Khalil Mack, but I do think he's ultimately a
first ballot Hall of Fame type of player that you
(09:01):
need to get the most out of. And when we've
been going through all this preseason talk, I haven't been
that that high on the Packers because my big thing
was I couldn't quite get there imagining this defense run
by Jeff Haffley, who I think did a goo job
last year, But I couldn't quite imagine this defense getting
through an entire conference worth of playoff games before and now,
(09:22):
like it's it's easier to see the vision.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How about the speed? Just just look at three guys.
Look at Micah Parsons, Edrin Cooper, Koy Walker, Like, first
of all, Rashan Gary, if I have to go back through,
I think he ran in the four high, four fives
coming out like he's stupid athletic. Devonte Wyatt ran incredibly
fast as someone at three hundred pounds, like they might
have the fastest front seven in the NFL. Now throwing
(09:48):
Micah Parsons into that mix. And by the way, Eric
did his homework Parsons and how many games against the
Eagles seven games against the Eagles five sacks, eight quarterback hits,
six tackles for loss. So the team that you got
to go through, he's got a pretty decent, decent track
record against those guys.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's wild.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And the crazy thing is like, that's not really out
of the ordinary for his normal numbers, and yet I
guess his back injury is fine. The second opinion on
the back that was reported a day ago, it checked out,
it's gonna be okay, and wow that Week one game
against the Detroit Lions, and really, this whole Packers season,
not that they weren't going to be in primetime already,
(10:26):
but they are just box office. Let's get to the
Cowboys side of things. If you're a Cowboys fan, it's
really disappointing. This Netflix documentary is out and you think
about the glory days and they spend a little time
at the end of the documentary DJs, you know, looking
at why they haven't been able to get back to
(10:48):
the super Bowl and the mistakes that they've made running
the team, And I think this just gives the impression
of a team that doesn't think ahead enough, like they
could have been like the Eagles, DJ and sign Michael
Parsons to an appropriate contract a year ago, which would
already look like a bargain because TJ. Watt and Miles
Garrett would have gone past it, but they just chose
(11:10):
not to do that and get into this situation and
then it got really personal and all those reports in.
Jordan Rodriga on NFL Daily talked about it too after
she went to Cowboys camp, of that this felt a
little different than most holdouts because it felt like it
got personally. That's bad management, I think when you have
a player as talented as Michael Parsons.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, but I will also I've mentioned this other shows before,
and that going out to training camp last year when
they had the three deals that needed to get done,
and when you talk to people around the team there
and some on the coaching side that you'd talk to
as well as some people just around the team, I
got very consistent feedback which was, oh, CD Ceede, LAMB
(11:51):
will get done. Like that, that contract will get done, Dak,
that's Deck's contract will get done. That's going to happen. Micah,
I don't know. I don't know about Micah. I don't know.
There's some people that aren't quite comfortable with him here.
I wouldn't say that's a slam dunk that that deal
gets done. That was going back in the past, So
that always kind of stuck with me that like they,
I don't know that they were ever comfortable, you know,
(12:14):
putting that investment in him, and I obviously has nothing
to do with the player on the field, because what
you've seen on the field easily that's an easy decision.
Age production, you know, how his skill set should continue
to age should be fine. To me, I don't know
how you could look at this any other way than
to say they weren't comfortable with Micah Parsons, the person
making that investment. There's no other way to explain it.
(12:35):
When you have a premier position, a premier talent, who's young,
who's productive, who's literally made for today's football with what
he can do in his skill set, to not pay
that guy, to me has nothing to do with anything
football related. That is to me again, I'm reading into it.
I don't know how you read into it any other way.
That has to be they weren't comfortable with Micah Parsons
(12:56):
a person in order to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, I'm so glad you you bring that up, and
it's a great point. I really think about the DeMarcus
Lawrence Micah Parsons like Twitter back and forth, which sounds stupid,
like it's just the stupid thing and players, you know,
they they not everyone has to get along.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But DeMarcus Lawrence in that interaction, I think gave voice
to some of the things you read from unnamed sources
about the Cowboys team and the locker room makeup that
maybe everyone wasn't exactly on the same page, and if
you read a lot of it, it wasn't hard to read
between the lines that Micah, in his maturity, maybe wasn't
(13:42):
like everyone didn't love Micah in that locker room. And
for DeMarcus Lawrence, who to me is kind of a
great example of a great cowboy first of all, but
a great pro that everyone lauds how he approaches the game, specifically,
that he was the person that was kind of shading Michaeh.
Parsons public for how he goes about things. That was
telling to me because I think Marcus Lawrence is a
(14:05):
guy who league wide and especially in the Cowboys building,
has a ton of respect for how he approaches things,
and so you're absolutely right that that plays into it
and the Packers are going to have to figure out
that part of the equation, and maybe that'll be a
challenge long term, but I don't think it's going to
be in twenty twenty five because he's going to be
ready to rip off the faces of all of his opponents,
(14:25):
including the Packers on September twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That's a good one to have on the schedule.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Can I can I give you one other comparison, because
you mentioned the Khalil Mack one and I'm trying and
I haven't seen all the reaction. I've just seen the
immediate reaction as we you know, we jumped on to
record this, but the immediate reaction was pretty harsh on
the Cowboys, as you would imagine, you know, for not
getting a deal done and signing the contract instead moving
on from a talented player like this. But I do
remember I remember being in a hotel. I don't remember
(14:52):
if it was the Senior Bowl or whatever when the
when the Stafford trade got done, and the immediate reaction
was Detroit is just they're just giving up. They've you know,
they have this talented quarterback, Matthew Stafford, viewed at the
time as a top five, top seven quarterback, you know,
as talented as anyone, and they're shipping them off and
all they're getting is Jared Goff and some draft picks.
(15:13):
Like they don't you know, the Detroit Lions are going
to suck for the next decade. They clearly don't care
about winning. In fact, we look at it now and
Detroit set themselves up by making good selections there. Obviously,
Jared Goff hitting at the quarterback position set themselves up
for a decade run. So I don't want to shovel
dirt on the Cowboys yet in terms of what this
can look like for them long term. But I do
(15:35):
think in speaking of the of the Packers window and
recognizing they're in it and going for it, I don't
know how you read into this anything other than the
Cowboys feel like they're not good enough, this version is
not good enough to take down the Eagles, and that
they have to try and put some eggs in the
basket going forward.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Wow, yeah, I think, how do you? I think it's
more of an ego thing, and by that I mean
they the ego of this battle, which got personal with
Michael Parsons that they didn't like them enough. And they
didn't need them, and they didn't like how this negotiation went.
And then the ego of we think we can do
it both ways. We think we can win this year
(16:13):
and trade away Michael Parsons because we've got four good addressers.
If there is one team that could survive losing Michael
Parsons just at that position, it's the Cowboys.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
So it's a review.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I mean, they're not nearly the same now, but you
got Ezaaku your guy the first rounder, like you got
Dante Fowler, who's probably gonna start for this team. It
was a pretty good pass rush for hire. He's been
with the Cowboys before, with the Commanders last year. You
have Sam Williams, who tour his ACL a couple of
years ago, but it looked really good in training camp.
He looked good a couple of years ago before trading
(16:45):
parrying his ACL, a young player. And you have Marshawn Niland,
who's more of a run stopper. So it's like it's
a strong position. And I guess that's why they went
for Kenny Clark because they are very thin in the
defensive interior. But Kenny Clark's a declining player who didn't
look right, last year, the Packers I thought were really
counting on him to rebound, but he's an aging player
(17:06):
and it's hard to count on a guy like that
the rebound, so that that is a curious part of
the deal.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, I was just pulling up some numbers from last year.
So for the Packer's side of it, Rashan Gary led
them with seven and a half sacks, So you're you're
adding Micah Parsons just gonna more than likely double what
you had last year. You take Micah Parsons off the Cowboys,
their leading soccer last year would have been at five
and a half sacks. So yeah, they've got some talent there.
(17:32):
Something that those guys were.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Those three guys, none of them were there, So.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I get it. I get those guys weren't all on campus,
but in terms of just in recent in Dallas Cowboy
uniforms with the star on their helmet, that's not you know,
that's going to be difficult to replace that production, even
though you've got some guys there.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Well you know who didn't have a single sack. And
I believe a quarterback hit through like the first six
games of last season was Kenny Clark. I think he
went about eight gamest a sack. It was something like
six to eight without a quarterback hit. And yeah he
was hurt. He was playing through an injury. But they're
they're gonna need him to be better. I gotta say though,
because if you're listening to the forties in free agent,
(18:13):
you might have gotten it on the NFL Daily Feed.
You might have moved the sticks or our own feed,
and we just put up in the daily feed. This
over underdraft they did with Nick Wright and Cowboys over
seven and a half was one of my picks.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
It was like my sixth pick.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I still think they're going to go over I really do.
I think offensively that they have enough to be a
winning football team. And there's the defense is now on
a razor's edge. I get it, but I do think
there's some upside to that defense. So all you would
say to Cowboys fans is I actually think they can
be competitive this year. You do get a couple first
(18:50):
round picks. They like the Lions you mentioned in that trade,
and the Rams for that matter, have been pretty good
at drafting, at least at the top of the draft,
even if it's a late first round pick that that's
a feather in their cap. It's I'm just trying to,
you know, think of the poor, downtrodden Cowboys fans in
our lives.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You know, it is.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Weird to have grown up a child of the nineties.
You know, Uh, that was kind of a I was
born in seventy seven, so that's I mean, that's kind
of like prime like into football age for me as
the big, bad, bold Cowboys and you know, reeling in
Charles Haley and going out and getting Dion Sanders and
acquiring Joey Galloway. Like they've always been on one side
(19:31):
of this deal, and it's like, I don't even know
who you are anymore, Like you guys are on the
on the selling side of this stuff. So it is
what it is. It'll be it'll be fascinating to watch
these two teams. But in kind of wrapping this thing up, Greg,
I was looking at it. Maybe the only I think
you could say, and I've talked a lot about the
Eagles here, the Eagles and the Packers, maybe that those
(19:51):
are the two fastest front sevens in football right now,
like the most athletic, like young just big time, big
time speed and inside that division with the Green Bay Packers.
Think about Detroit Detroit with Gibbs and Williams, Like how
explosive and dynamic they are. Laporta who can really run,
and like, all of a sudden, now the Packers, they've
got some fastballs at the you know, the front, first
(20:13):
and second level of their defense. It's going to be
fun to watch them. Man.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, the fact that they have Edrian Cooper back there
and he's really good if kway Walker, like, if nothing else,
he has a fireball and he will be you're talking
about team speed.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I don't think there there are any teams that are
more explosive in the front seven. I think the Vikings
are very interesting and tough to prepare for, but they
don't have the juice and the Texans they don't quite
have the guys.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
On the interior in terms of their defensive line. And man,
the Packers did it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I you know one thing I love about this too
is Ted Thompson and Gouda Kuntz. You're right, like it's
a it's just consistently hitting those singles, hitting those doubles.
We're not going to spend too much in free agency,
although they have started to so we're not.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Going to draft a receiver in the front everybody want.
We're not. It's like that should have been our that
should have been our alarm clock. They're spending money in
free agency. They're announcing to the world that they're taking
a receiver in the in the drafts. In Green Bay,
the whole town goes nuts. I mean, this is a
new Packers.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
They they have.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, they're they're replacing the Cowboys as an America's team.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
It would it would be fun to see, you know, oh, oh,
you know it's a sidebar that I just thought of.
I don't know if I told you this, but I
was at UH. I went on a little one day
getaway with the wife and we went up to the UH,
up to the Ritz Carlton and Laguna Degel for one night.
And we're staying there and I go out on the
balcony and I see just a bunch of NFL looking
(21:41):
players walking around.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I'm like, what is going on here? Like? And then
I see, oh, they're all dressed up nice, like must
be a wedding. Uh, And so I all then all
of a sudden, I see walking down from the wedding,
I see a sign and I go, what is it?
I can't quite make it out. And then I see
David Mulgeta, the agent, walk right by and he looks
up at me on the balcony. I'm only on the
second floor, so you can could have seen me. He goes,
what are you doing here? And I go, I'm just
(22:04):
here like a little getaway with my wife. What's going on? So? Oh,
it's Jordan Love's wedding. So now I'm putting the wheels
in motion. David Mulgetta, Micah Parson's agent, was at Jordan
Love's wedding. Lafleur was there the whole darn near Packers
team wo. So my question is did I see the
beginning of the makings of the this whole thing coming
together at Jordan Love's wedding at the Ritz Carlton and
(22:26):
Lagoon and a gel. Now my mind is like exploding
as I'm figuring this out in real time.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
You did it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You don't need to go to Reddit and find the
conspiracy theorists who, by the way, we're we're right on
about this trade. You've got Daniel Jeremiah months ahead in
actual real life. That's that's pretty bizarre quality reporting. And
not too different from how that Dared Goff and Matthew Stafford.
You know, trade all happened when John McVay and Stafford,
they just happened to be vacationing at the same hotel
(22:54):
in Mexico. Oh man, that is awesome. I'm glad the
time worked out for us to get this in before
the holiday weekend and before you hear back from us
in the Forties and Free Agent Feed. So we're going
to be playing a couple episodes Monday and Tuesday where
we draft the most likely Super Bowl champions and I
(23:17):
think the Packers have to move on.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I got a value pick there.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, I think they're They're looking good.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
All right, appreciate you, DJ, and yes, we'll be back
in the feed in just a couple of days. Micah Parsons,
I mean with the photoshop, he looks good in a pass.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
How about a bonus Forties and Free Agents that America.
Good for you. You got a yellow bonus
Welcome to a special breaking news episode of Forties and
Free Agents. I am here Greg Rosenthal with my friend
Daniel Jeremiah just minutes after one of the biggest trades
in NFL history. We can call it that, Micah Parsons
is going to the Green Bay Packers in exchange for
(00:24):
two first round picks and veteran Kenny Clark. On top
of that, he signed a four year, one hundred and
eighty eight million dollar contract with one hundred and thirty
six million dollars guaranteed. It is good to be Micah Parsons,
and it is good to be Daniel Jeremiah who gets
to do a breaking news podcast with yours. Truly, this
is gonna be fun. Like what was your first reaction?
(00:46):
Where were you when you saw this?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I was I just got back from lunch and
I was in the family room and I got on
my phone. This is what's This is the scale I
we'll use for how big of a story it is.
It was an at wrap sheet tweet and I did
a triple It was a triple check of is this
am I getting fooled here? I don't want to retweet
(01:08):
this if this is not authentic and it was like, oh, yeah, this,
this really happened. So that was my first reaction. My
second reaction was I was on an interview yesterday and
was asked about this, and I said, you know, I
kind of perked up a little bit when they asked
Brian gudakinst at the press conference yesterday about it. I speak,
I'm fluent in GM. I speak fluent GM. I know
(01:30):
exactly how they handle and answer every single question, and
it's all right out of a playbook. And anytime anybody
ever asked you about a player on another team or
opportunity or potential trade, the stock GM answer you get
every single time is you know what, I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna comment on any other players, you know,
worried about the guys we have in our room. Blah
blah blah blah blah. That's standard stock answer. You never
(01:50):
give it any any light whatsoever. And he said, and
he's quoted even I think before this what we saw yesterday,
which was, hey, if we have an opportunity, we're willing
to you know, we're willing to part with picks and
we're willing to live. And I'm like, that is far
from what the normal answer is in that situation, my
ears perked up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, they were right to perk up, because Ian Rappaport,
who Yeah put the news out, said that the terms
of the deal I believe between Parsons and the Packers
were done two days ago, and I think they were
figuring out the compensation in the meantime. I ultimately think
(02:30):
it's bad business to trade a player that I believe
is the best pure pass rusher of the last twenty
years to enter the league.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
You could make an argument for.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Von Miller or Miles Garrett, and that's fine, but just
in terms of came into the league and was immediately
a complete difference maker as a pass rusher. He finished
second in Defensive Player of the Year, not Rookie the
Year Player of the Year as a rookie and has
maintained that high level for three seasons. I would say
last season was a little bit of a step back.
(03:01):
Room was at one hundred percent healthy. I think it
is bad business not to just get the deal done
with Micah Parsons and avoid all that, because if you
think about it, DJ the Packers were not only willing
to give him that contract, he was worth enough to
give him that contract and two first round picks. So
I think that says something about the type of player
(03:22):
that he is. And I think it's bad business for
the Cowboys. But for the Packers, we've been asking for
them to add a little more juice. This.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
This is a little more juice. This is a lot
more juice.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
There's so many different angles to hit this on. So
I guess I'll try and narrow my thoughts. So let's
do Packers and then we'll get the Cowboys. So I'll
start on the Packers side of things. I always talk
to guys in the personnel departments and leadership when we
get to the offseason. You know, whether it's at All
Star games, combine phone calls before the draft, you know
what are your team needs, what are you looking for?
You know, you know kind of where you are in
(03:53):
your process. And the thing I got from the Packers
was we love all the talent we have on defense.
We have a lot of young guys. We have We've
invested a lot of high picks in front seven players.
We think we've got some really really good football players.
We don't know that we have that blue level player,
which we call like a blue chip guy who's you know,
that's the highest of the high one of somebody who's
(04:15):
a top three to five player at their position in
the league. They felt like that a lot of guys
kind of in that their top we're top ten to
fifteen players at their position. We don't have a top
three to five guy at his position, and we don't
have a player that we felt if we go into
a big game that the opponent is circling and going,
we have to game plan and scheme around this player.
(04:35):
So we really want to get an impact player. We
really want a blue level player. And their thing to
me was our hope is that some of our existing
guys can maybe evolve into that and be those guys,
but we have to be real with ourselves that they're
not there at this point in time. So this clearly
checks that box. That's the first thing. The second thing
is I'm a huge believer in understanding your windows and
(04:58):
understanding what phase are you in right now?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Is this a.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Hey, we're trying to get from okay to good phase,
Like let's be a little bit smart and savvy with
our moves. Is this a little bit of a tear down? Hey,
we got to go down to go back up, or
is this We're this close, Greg, and let's be bold
and let's be aggressive and let's go for it. And
I feel like with Jordan Love where he is in
his ascension with a system and coaching staff offensive with
(05:24):
it's in place. They're looking at all these young defensive
players and they said it's go time. And I love
that because I think that's the proper I think that
was a proper identification of where their team is.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And a peek behind the curtain for the listeners wondering
why are we doing the breaking news episode.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Look, we taped a couple episodes earlier.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Today you're going to hear forties of free agents where
we draft who could be the Super Bowl champion. Well
that was blown up, so we had to get together
to fix that. Well we might as well just do
the breaking news. And one of the points I thought
that you made a good point about the Packers when
you saw them spend money on Aaron Banks an interior alignment,
like that was a move that teams make when they
think they're really close. But this is like another level
(06:04):
to the Aaron Banks move, and I love it. I
do love it because now Rashan Gary is their second.
Like they still have talented players up front, but now
Rashan Gary is in a more supplementary role. Lucas van
Ness who they like, and he can be the number
three guy there like it helps out the guys on
the interior and DeVante Wyatt.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So there's a lot of people that are helped out
by this trade.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
All right, Can I give Eric homework?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
By the way, that's our producer.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes, I'm a lot of your producer Eric homework. Just
by the time we end the time we end this
little conversation, can we get Micah Parsons career numbers against
the Philadelphia Eagles. I'd be curious about that because this
also does feel like you went out and got Aaron
Banks to block Jalen Carter, a team that you have
to get through to get to a Super Bowl out
of the NFC. Now you go out and get Micah Parsons,
who's going to be extremely familiar with with Philly and
(06:51):
obviously he's a great player. An elite player at elite
position is going to work against any team. But as
you're trying to get over the hump, and I think
that everybody that's in the NFC clearly has the Philadelphia Eagles,
you know, in their sights, that's who you're trying to
That's who you got to get by. It's who you
got to beat. So I absolutely love it from the
Green Bay side of things in terms of the picks.
Two first round picks Kenny Clark, which I was a
(07:14):
little surprised, the Cowboys and we'll get to them that
they didn't want an edge guy, you know, because you're
losing one, bring one in, but they do have some
depth there. You're going to have him and Odiga Zua. Again,
we'll get to the Cowboys. But I love it from
the Packers' standpoint. To me, it's I'm always going to
be optimistic on picks that they're going to be late picks.
Everybody's optimistic about how the team they have and how
(07:35):
this player is going to come in and give them
a late pick. Whereas the Cowboys side of things, I
like lottery tickets on bad teams. I don't like the
lottery tickets on really really good teams. I'd almost rather
know what I'm getting In terms of where the picks are.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, and you know, I'll do respect to the players
I'm mentioning, but like, think of the last first round picks,
late first round picks for the Packers. Lucas van Ness
is one of them, qua Walker is one of them.
DeVante Whyett is one of them. Solid players. But you're
not drafting at the top of the first round, and
you're not planning to be drafting at the top of
(08:10):
the first round when you trade for Micah Parsons, So.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
You're not fine Michah Parsons in the late twenties, I
can tell you right.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Even the fact he slipped as far as he did,
good job by Dallas, but ultimately you're giving up some
of that. There are historical precedents. I mean, of course
you think of just like Reggie White coming to the Packers,
but that's a different situation. But in terms of a trade,
the terms are not crazy different to the Khalil Mack
trade to the Bears back in the day where the
(08:39):
Raiders got to firsts Now they did send a second
back and they got a third. So it's a little
more complicated with Kenny Clark involved, but essentially to first
was part of it. I think Parsons, like I said,
is another level of player which is hard to say
than Khalil Mack, but I do think he's ultimately a
first ballot Hall of Fame type of player that you
(09:01):
need to get the most out of. And when we've
been going through all this preseason talk, I haven't been
that that high on the Packers because my big thing
was I couldn't quite get there imagining this defense run
by Jeff Haffley, who I think did a goo job
last year, But I couldn't quite imagine this defense getting
through an entire conference worth of playoff games before and now,
(09:22):
like it's it's easier to see the vision.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How about the speed? Just just look at three guys.
Look at Micah Parsons, Edrin Cooper, Koy Walker, Like, first
of all, Rashan Gary, if I have to go back through,
I think he ran in the four high, four fives
coming out like he's stupid athletic. Devonte Wyatt ran incredibly
fast as someone at three hundred pounds, like they might
have the fastest front seven in the NFL. Now throwing
(09:48):
Micah Parsons into that mix. And by the way, Eric
did his homework Parsons and how many games against the
Eagles seven games against the Eagles five sacks, eight quarterback hits,
six tackles for loss. So the team that you got
to go through, he's got a pretty decent, decent track
record against those guys.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
It's wild.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And the crazy thing is like, that's not really out
of the ordinary for his normal numbers, and yet I
guess his back injury is fine. The second opinion on
the back that was reported a day ago, it checked out,
it's gonna be okay, and wow that Week one game
against the Detroit Lions, and really, this whole Packers season,
not that they weren't going to be in primetime already,
(10:26):
but they are just box office. Let's get to the
Cowboys side of things. If you're a Cowboys fan, it's
really disappointing. This Netflix documentary is out and you think
about the glory days and they spend a little time
at the end of the documentary DJs, you know, looking
at why they haven't been able to get back to
(10:48):
the super Bowl and the mistakes that they've made running
the team, And I think this just gives the impression
of a team that doesn't think ahead enough, like they
could have been like the Eagles, DJ and sign Michael
Parsons to an appropriate contract a year ago, which would
already look like a bargain because TJ. Watt and Miles
Garrett would have gone past it, but they just chose
(11:10):
not to do that and get into this situation and
then it got really personal and all those reports in.
Jordan Rodriga on NFL Daily talked about it too after
she went to Cowboys camp, of that this felt a
little different than most holdouts because it felt like it
got personally. That's bad management, I think when you have
a player as talented as Michael Parsons.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Yeah, but I will also I've mentioned this other shows before,
and that going out to training camp last year when
they had the three deals that needed to get done,
and when you talk to people around the team there
and some on the coaching side that you'd talk to
as well as some people just around the team, I
got very consistent feedback which was, oh, CD Ceede, LAMB
(11:51):
will get done. Like that, that contract will get done, Dak,
that's Deck's contract will get done. That's going to happen. Micah,
I don't know. I don't know about Micah. I don't know.
There's some people that aren't quite comfortable with him here.
I wouldn't say that's a slam dunk that that deal
gets done. That was going back in the past, So
that always kind of stuck with me that like they,
I don't know that they were ever comfortable, you know,
(12:14):
putting that investment in him, and I obviously has nothing
to do with the player on the field, because what
you've seen on the field easily that's an easy decision.
Age production, you know, how his skill set should continue
to age should be fine. To me, I don't know
how you could look at this any other way than
to say they weren't comfortable with Micah Parsons, the person
making that investment. There's no other way to explain it.
(12:35):
When you have a premier position, a premier talent, who's young,
who's productive, who's literally made for today's football with what
he can do in his skill set, to not pay
that guy, to me has nothing to do with anything
football related. That is to me again, I'm reading into it.
I don't know how you read into it any other way.
That has to be they weren't comfortable with Micah Parsons
(12:56):
a person in order to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, I'm so glad you you bring that up, and
it's a great point. I really think about the DeMarcus
Lawrence Micah Parsons like Twitter back and forth, which sounds stupid,
like it's just the stupid thing and players, you know,
they they not everyone has to get along.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Okay, I get it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But DeMarcus Lawrence in that interaction, I think gave voice
to some of the things you read from unnamed sources
about the Cowboys team and the locker room makeup that
maybe everyone wasn't exactly on the same page, and if
you read a lot of it, it wasn't hard to read
between the lines that Micah, in his maturity, maybe wasn't
(13:42):
like everyone didn't love Micah in that locker room. And
for DeMarcus Lawrence, who to me is kind of a
great example of a great cowboy first of all, but
a great pro that everyone lauds how he approaches the game, specifically,
that he was the person that was kind of shading Michaeh.
Parsons public for how he goes about things. That was
telling to me because I think Marcus Lawrence is a
(14:05):
guy who league wide and especially in the Cowboys building,
has a ton of respect for how he approaches things,
and so you're absolutely right that that plays into it
and the Packers are going to have to figure out
that part of the equation, and maybe that'll be a
challenge long term, but I don't think it's going to
be in twenty twenty five because he's going to be
ready to rip off the faces of all of his opponents,
(14:25):
including the Packers on September twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
That's a good one to have on the schedule.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Can I can I give you one other comparison, because
you mentioned the Khalil Mack one and I'm trying and
I haven't seen all the reaction. I've just seen the
immediate reaction as we you know, we jumped on to
record this, but the immediate reaction was pretty harsh on
the Cowboys, as you would imagine, you know, for not
getting a deal done and signing the contract instead moving
on from a talented player like this. But I do
remember I remember being in a hotel. I don't remember
(14:52):
if it was the Senior Bowl or whatever when the
when the Stafford trade got done, and the immediate reaction
was Detroit is just they're just giving up. They've you know,
they have this talented quarterback, Matthew Stafford, viewed at the
time as a top five, top seven quarterback, you know,
as talented as anyone, and they're shipping them off and
all they're getting is Jared Goff and some draft picks.
(15:13):
Like they don't you know, the Detroit Lions are going
to suck for the next decade. They clearly don't care
about winning. In fact, we look at it now and
Detroit set themselves up by making good selections there. Obviously,
Jared Goff hitting at the quarterback position set themselves up
for a decade run. So I don't want to shovel
dirt on the Cowboys yet in terms of what this
can look like for them long term. But I do
(15:35):
think in speaking of the of the Packers window and
recognizing they're in it and going for it, I don't
know how you read into this anything other than the
Cowboys feel like they're not good enough, this version is
not good enough to take down the Eagles, and that
they have to try and put some eggs in the
basket going forward.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Wow, yeah, I think, how do you? I think it's
more of an ego thing, and by that I mean
they the ego of this battle, which got personal with
Michael Parsons that they didn't like them enough. And they
didn't need them, and they didn't like how this negotiation went.
And then the ego of we think we can do
it both ways. We think we can win this year
(16:13):
and trade away Michael Parsons because we've got four good addressers.
If there is one team that could survive losing Michael
Parsons just at that position, it's the Cowboys.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
So it's a review.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I mean, they're not nearly the same now, but you
got Ezaaku your guy the first rounder, like you got
Dante Fowler, who's probably gonna start for this team. It
was a pretty good pass rush for hire. He's been
with the Cowboys before, with the Commanders last year. You
have Sam Williams, who tour his ACL a couple of
years ago, but it looked really good in training camp.
He looked good a couple of years ago before trading
(16:45):
parrying his ACL, a young player. And you have Marshawn Niland,
who's more of a run stopper. So it's like it's
a strong position. And I guess that's why they went
for Kenny Clark because they are very thin in the
defensive interior. But Kenny Clark's a declining player who didn't
look right, last year, the Packers I thought were really
counting on him to rebound, but he's an aging player
(17:06):
and it's hard to count on a guy like that
the rebound, so that that is a curious part of
the deal.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, I was just pulling up some numbers from last year.
So for the Packer's side of it, Rashan Gary led
them with seven and a half sacks, So you're you're
adding Micah Parsons just gonna more than likely double what
you had last year. You take Micah Parsons off the Cowboys,
their leading soccer last year would have been at five
and a half sacks. So yeah, they've got some talent there.
(17:32):
Something that those guys were.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Those three guys, none of them were there, So.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I get it. I get those guys weren't all on campus,
but in terms of just in recent in Dallas Cowboy
uniforms with the star on their helmet, that's not you know,
that's going to be difficult to replace that production, even
though you've got some guys there.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Well you know who didn't have a single sack. And
I believe a quarterback hit through like the first six
games of last season was Kenny Clark. I think he
went about eight gamest a sack. It was something like
six to eight without a quarterback hit. And yeah he
was hurt. He was playing through an injury. But they're
they're gonna need him to be better. I gotta say though,
because if you're listening to the forties in free agent,
(18:13):
you might have gotten it on the NFL Daily Feed.
You might have moved the sticks or our own feed,
and we just put up in the daily feed. This
over underdraft they did with Nick Wright and Cowboys over
seven and a half was one of my picks.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
It was like my sixth pick.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Or something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I still think they're going to go over I really do.
I think offensively that they have enough to be a
winning football team. And there's the defense is now on
a razor's edge. I get it, but I do think
there's some upside to that defense. So all you would
say to Cowboys fans is I actually think they can
be competitive this year. You do get a couple first
(18:50):
round picks. They like the Lions you mentioned in that trade,
and the Rams for that matter, have been pretty good
at drafting, at least at the top of the draft,
even if it's a late first round pick that that's
a feather in their cap. It's I'm just trying to,
you know, think of the poor, downtrodden Cowboys fans in
our lives.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
You know, it is.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Weird to have grown up a child of the nineties.
You know, Uh, that was kind of a I was
born in seventy seven, so that's I mean, that's kind
of like prime like into football age for me as
the big, bad, bold Cowboys and you know, reeling in
Charles Haley and going out and getting Dion Sanders and
acquiring Joey Galloway. Like they've always been on one side
(19:31):
of this deal, and it's like, I don't even know
who you are anymore, Like you guys are on the
on the selling side of this stuff. So it is
what it is. It'll be it'll be fascinating to watch
these two teams. But in kind of wrapping this thing up, Greg,
I was looking at it. Maybe the only I think
you could say, and I've talked a lot about the
Eagles here, the Eagles and the Packers, maybe that those
(19:51):
are the two fastest front sevens in football right now,
like the most athletic, like young just big time, big
time speed and inside that division with the Green Bay Packers.
Think about Detroit Detroit with Gibbs and Williams, Like how
explosive and dynamic they are. Laporta who can really run,
and like, all of a sudden, now the Packers, they've
got some fastballs at the you know, the front, first
(20:13):
and second level of their defense. It's going to be
fun to watch them. Man.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yeah, the fact that they have Edrian Cooper back there
and he's really good if kway Walker, like, if nothing else,
he has a fireball and he will be you're talking
about team speed.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I don't think there there are any teams that are
more explosive in the front seven. I think the Vikings
are very interesting and tough to prepare for, but they
don't have the juice and the Texans they don't quite
have the guys.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
On the interior in terms of their defensive line. And man,
the Packers did it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I you know one thing I love about this too
is Ted Thompson and Gouda Kuntz. You're right, like it's
a it's just consistently hitting those singles, hitting those doubles.
We're not going to spend too much in free agency,
although they have started to so we're not.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Going to draft a receiver in the front everybody want.
We're not. It's like that should have been our that
should have been our alarm clock. They're spending money in
free agency. They're announcing to the world that they're taking
a receiver in the in the drafts. In Green Bay,
the whole town goes nuts. I mean, this is a
new Packers.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
They they have.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, they're they're replacing the Cowboys as an America's team.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
It would it would be fun to see, you know, oh, oh,
you know it's a sidebar that I just thought of.
I don't know if I told you this, but I
was at UH. I went on a little one day
getaway with the wife and we went up to the UH,
up to the Ritz Carlton and Laguna Degel for one night.
And we're staying there and I go out on the
balcony and I see just a bunch of NFL looking
(21:41):
players walking around.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I'm like, what is going on here? Like? And then
I see, oh, they're all dressed up nice, like must
be a wedding. Uh, And so I all then all
of a sudden, I see walking down from the wedding,
I see a sign and I go, what is it?
I can't quite make it out. And then I see
David Mulgeta, the agent, walk right by and he looks
up at me on the balcony. I'm only on the
second floor, so you can could have seen me. He goes,
what are you doing here? And I go, I'm just
(22:04):
here like a little getaway with my wife. What's going on? So? Oh,
it's Jordan Love's wedding. So now I'm putting the wheels
in motion. David Mulgetta, Micah Parson's agent, was at Jordan
Love's wedding. Lafleur was there the whole darn near Packers
team wo. So my question is did I see the
beginning of the makings of the this whole thing coming
together at Jordan Love's wedding at the Ritz Carlton and
(22:26):
Lagoon and a gel. Now my mind is like exploding
as I'm figuring this out in real time.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
You did it.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
You don't need to go to Reddit and find the
conspiracy theorists who, by the way, we're we're right on
about this trade. You've got Daniel Jeremiah months ahead in
actual real life. That's that's pretty bizarre quality reporting. And
not too different from how that Dared Goff and Matthew Stafford.
You know, trade all happened when John McVay and Stafford,
they just happened to be vacationing at the same hotel
(22:54):
in Mexico. Oh man, that is awesome. I'm glad the
time worked out for us to get this in before
the holiday weekend and before you hear back from us
in the Forties and Free Agent Feed. So we're going
to be playing a couple episodes Monday and Tuesday where
we draft the most likely Super Bowl champions and I
(23:17):
think the Packers have to move on.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I got a value pick there.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, I think they're They're looking good.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
All right, appreciate you, DJ, and yes, we'll be back
in the feed in just a couple of days. Micah Parsons,
I mean with the photoshop, he looks good in a pass.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
How about a bonus Forties and Free Agents that America.
Good for you. You got a yellow bonus
Host
Gregg Rosenthal
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