The Micah Parsons trade is still shaping the Cowboys’ roster, and Dallas just put another twist on it.
A year after Green Bay sent two first-round picks and Kenny Clark to the Cowboys for Parsons in August 2025, Dallas has turned around and used more of that draft capital in another defensive deal. On September 30, the Cowboys agreed to send Pittsburgh a 2028 second-round pick and a conditional sixth-round pick in 2027 for Joey Porter Jr.
That move brought the Parsons blockbuster back into focus, because it pushed Dallas further down the path of reworking its defense with the return it got from one of the biggest deals in recent memory. ESPN’s Benjamin Solak pointed to the sequence and framed it this way: “Instead of paying Micah Parsons $46.5M per year, the Cowboys traded him for two Round 1 picks and Kenny Clark,” wrote the NFL insider.
Parsons’ side of the deal has already taken on a massive financial shape in Green Bay. He agreed to a four-year, $188 million extension with the Packers that averages $47 million per season and includes $136 million in guarantees. Dallas, meanwhile, received Clark and the Packers’ first-round picks in 2026 and 2027.
Solak then drew the line from that trade to the Cowboys’ latest moves: “They’ve now traded away a Round 1 and two Round 2 picks for Quinnen Williams and Joey Porter Jr., whom they will pay combined (assuming JPJ extension) ~$65.3M per year,” he continued.
That estimate hinges on Dallas eventually giving Porter a contract that would land around $30 million per year, even though no such extension has been committed yet. The broader point remains the same: the Parsons trade continues to ripple through the Cowboys’ roster construction, while Green Bay took the opposite route and made Parsons the financial and defensive centerpiece.
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