Cris Collinsworth awkwardly defends Jerry Jones trading Micah Parsons

Something was missing on Thursday night. The Dallas Cowboys functionally looked like a good team on one side of the football, while missing a game-changing player on the other side. How could that be? Well, they just traded Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. And yet, Cris Collinsworth spent the better part of the broadcast trying to convince viewers that Jerry Jones made the right call.

“If Jerry had signed Micah Parsons, he would’ve had 50 percent of his cap covered with three players,” Collinsworth said. “And that’s a dangerous place to be, to be honest with you. And as the number started to go up, they started thinking about what that might mean. ”

“If Jerry had signed Micah Parsons, he would’ve had 50 percent of his cap covered with three players. And that’s a dangerous place to be, to be honest with you.” – Cris Collinsworth. pic.twitter.com/wPO9naBbKi

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 5, 2025

Collinsworth was referring to Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and what would have been Parsons taking up half the salary cap. His argument was essentially that Jerry Jones made a smart financial decision by trading away one of the NFL’s most dominant defensive players rather than paying him.

This is also the same Jerry Jones who suggested one reason for hesitating on Parsons’ contract was that he might “get hit by a car, seriously.”

“And I think Jerry just likes the action, to be honest with you,” Collinsworth continued. “Now, he has money to spend on new contracts. We’ve already seen him doing a little bit of that. And more than anything else, he has four players now in the first round of the next two drafts, and they’re supposed to be very good drafts that he gets to play with. So, now Jerry gets to play wheeler and dealer.”

The Cowboys received two first-round picks and Kenny Clark for Micah Parsons, who immediately signed a four-year, $188 million deal with Green Bay. Parsons became the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history, getting precisely what he wanted from the Cowboys before they shipped him out.

Sure, the draft picks give Dallas flexibility, and Clark provides immediate help at defensive tackle. But trading away a 26-year-old who’s recorded 12+ sacks in four straight seasons for future potential is a gamble that most contending teams wouldn’t make.

Meanwhile, Jones had already committed massive money to Prescott, who’s now 32 years old and coming off a season where he tore his hamstring. The Cowboys also paid CeeDee Lamb, but they drew the line at paying the pass rusher who’s been the most consistent player on their defense for four straight seasons.

Cris Collinsworth was doing his best to find logic in what looked like another Jerry Jones decision driven more by ego than football sense. And while that was plenty awkward enough, the timing made it even more awkward.

As Cris Collinsworth was explaining why the trade made sense on paper, the Cowboys’ defense — coordinated by ex-Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus — was getting picked apart by Philadelphia. You couldn’t help but think about how different things might have looked with Parsons coming off the edge.

The real issue isn’t the salary cap gymnastics Collinsworth was trying to explain. It’s that Jerry Jones cares more about being the star of his own show than winning championships. The Parsons mess played out exactly like every other Cowboys contract dispute does: months of public back-and-forth, followed by Jones making a decision that feeds his ego instead of helping the team.

The Cowboys traded away their best defensive player because Jerry Jones didn’t want to pay him. Collinsworth’s attempt to dress that up as smart business was one of the more uncomfortable moments of the season opener.