Michael Irvin ‘guaranteed’ Cowboys would not trade Micah Parsons hours before being traded to Packers

Very few former players likely know Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones better than Hall of Fame wideout turned media personality Michael Irvin. But despite this, Irvin’s take on Thursday afternoon about the ongoing conflict between Jones and star edge rusher Micah Parsons couldn’t have been a bigger swing and a miss.

We have seen several star players, including Terry McLaurin and Trey Hendrickson, request trades amidst negotiations looking for a contract extension, a strategy many in the past have largely used as leverage to get the deal that they are seeking.

Most assumed that Micah Parsons was doing the exact same thing with the Cowboys, requesting a trade earlier this month after several back and forth comments with Jerry Jones about how the contract negotiations were going.

Despite reports earlier in the day from ESPN’s Adam Schefter that the Cowboys were indeed listening to trade offers for Parsons, Irvin declared that the Cowboys would not trade Parsons on Thursday’s edition of NFL Live.

“You can report all you want,” said Irvin of Schefter’s report. “There’s no way they’re allowing Micah Parsons to go anywhere. All of this is part of the negotiations. I talked to Jerry the other day on my podcast, he was talking about it the other day. When he tried to make an offer and he said somebody told him to shove it up his rear. Honestly, it blew my mind. It blew my mind that any kind of conversation like that would be going on in a situation like this.

“Micah Parsons, I want him to take control of this thing and say, ‘I don’t care about you two and whatever y’all got going on. Get your butts in a room and get my money on that paper.’ That’s what you need to be doing. So I’m hoping that is what gets done. But I guarantee, Micah Parsons is not going anywhere. Jerry is not that crazy. This is all what we call just negotiation stuff.”

“You can report all you want. There’s no way they’re allowing Micah Parsons to go anywhere… I can guarantee- Micah Parsons isn’t going anywhere. [Jerry Jones] is not that crazy.” – Michael Irvin earlier today on ESPN. 🏈 #NFL pic.twitter.com/gxee6n5Yyp https://t.co/GhENi032zR

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 28, 2025

Unfortunately for Irvin, he sure seems to have understated the level of crazy that Jones is.

Hours later, reports would emerge that the Cowboys had indeed traded Parsons to the Green Bay Packers, with the Cowboys getting multiple first-round picks and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark in return from the Packers.

Full terms:
— Cowboys get Kenny Clark and 2 1sts.
— Packers get Micah Parsons. https://t.co/7ATclEMp5J

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 28, 2025

To be fair to the Cowboys, they certainly could have done worse than getting two first-round picks and a Pro Bowl-caliber player in return for Parsons. But it is certainly one of the more shocking trades that have come to be a week before the start of the season in recent memory.

Irvin was as shocked as anyone, posting a 17-minute reaction video on his YouTube channel where he described how the deal left him in a “state of shock”.