by: Alex Byington 42 minutes ago _AlexByington
The 2025 NFL season is still one week away, but there’s already fireworks going off after the Dallas Cowboys traded two-time All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers on Thursday.
The deal formally ended a contentious contract dispute between Parsons and longtime Cowboys owner Jerry Jones , with 26-year-old Parsons agreeing to a new four-year, $188 million deal with the Packers that will make him the NFL’s highest-paid non-quarterback with an average salary of $47 million annually.
Now we know what the Cowboys got in return. Green Bay is sending 29-year-old, three-time Pro Bowl DT Kenny Clark and two future first-round picks in 2026 and 2027 to Dallas for Parsons, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. The Cowboys confirmed the terms of the deal.
This deal comes nearly four weeks to the day that Parsons formally requested a trade Aug. 1 after weeks of back-and-forth with Jones and the Cowboys front office.
Clark, the Packers’ 2016 first-round pick (No. 27 overall) out of UCLA , has made the Pro Bowl three times (2019, 2021, 2023) across his nine seasons in Green Bay. While he had a bit of a down year stat-wise in 2024, Clark has been among the Packers most reliable defenders and a stout playmaker in the middle of their defense for the better part of the last decade.
That includes registering a career-high 7.5 sacks, two forced fumbles and three passes defended in 2023, the second of three straight seasons in which Clark started atleast 18 games, including all 17 in the regular-season. Clark has 35 career sacks, seven forced fumbles, eight fumble returns and 417 total tackles in nine years in Green Bay.