Micah Parsons downplays his return to Dallas, says sacking his mentor Dak Prescott will be ‘painful’ – Rob Maaddi, AP News
The former All-Pro pass rusher wants to keep the narrative about Sunday’s game and not his return to Dallas.
Parsons and the Green Bay Packers (2-1) face off against Prescott and the Cowboys (1-2) in front of a national television audience on Sunday night.
“It’s going to be painful,” Parsons told the AP about getting a chance to sack Prescott. “That’s my guy. He was always like a good mentor for me. But you know how it is, he always told me if I ever faced him that it’ll be a great matchup, so I’m excited to see what Sunday brings itself.”
Parsons plans to treat it like an ordinary game, though it’ll be his first time inside AT&T Stadium as a visitor.
“I accepted my fate weeks ago when the trade happened,” Parsons said. “So for me, it’s just all about playing another game and just doing what I do best, and that’s just be a disruptive football player. I think the media and the fans are trying to blow it up to be such a big thing. But I just look at it as just another game at AT&T.”
Just a game that was circled on everyone’s calendar after Cowboys owner Jerry Jones traded Parsons to the Packers one week before the NFL’s season opener, ending a lengthy contract dispute.
Why Cowboys’ Jerry Jones likes talking contracts with players – Todd Archer, ESPN
A deep dive into Jerry Jones and the Cowboys negotiating tactics.
Micah Parsons isn’t the first player whom Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has talked to directly about a contract extension. He won’t be the last.
It has been a common practice for Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones over the years to engage with their star players in hopes of convincing them to sign a new deal, and then finalizing the details with the player’s agent.
There is nothing in the collective bargaining agreement that explicitly prevents the discussions, although several agents said it is not a good look to circumvent them and go to the player who might not know all the details — details that could end up costing the player money. While the agents work for the players, they are also protecting their own interests by making sure they are involved in all parts of the negotiation.
“We have — not exaggerating — probably 30 categories we use to evaluate a deal, whether it’s new money, old money, guarantee structure, whatever,” one agent, who has experience doing deals with the Cowboys, said. “That’s too many moving parts, and it takes more than a handshake.”
Jerry Jones on Cowboys’ defensive struggles, Micah Parsons’ return to Dallas – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com
Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones says the team has to make adjustments.
Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones shared similar sentiments. In the team’s Monday meeting to go over the game, Jones was looking for answers after a second straight week of defensive struggles.
“What you want is what we’re going to do about it,” Jones said on 105.3 the Fan. “There’s not much argument as to what we didn’t do well that resulted in the loss. There’s not a lot of conversation about that other than how can we, this coming week and the three days of practice, how can we basically address it personnel wise, scheme wise.”
It all boiled down to a lack of complimentary football on Dallas’ end. The Cowboys were able to prevent the Bears from running the football well, but struggled once again in their pass rush and it led to a second straight week of explosive plays against the secondary.
“The play on the front didn’t match what we were doing in the back,” Jones said. “A zone defense is a safe defense, it should allow, when played right, shorter gains but not big plays. If you do a zone defense and you limit your rush by number then that’s the perfect storm against you. You got to be able to stop explosive plays. When you don’t have it, you have to make adjustments.”
In terms of what those adjustments look like, the Cowboys are hoping that the addition of Jadeveon Clowney this week and “good possibility” of DaRon Bland returning Sunday can help in that department. Brian Schottenheimer also said yesterday that the Cowboys will be making both scheme and personnel changes on the defensive side of the ball going forward.
Matt Eberflus returning to Dallas gave the Cowboys their third defensive coordinator in as many years. In 2024, the defense under Mike Zimmer faced similar early season struggles with big offensive showings from the New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens in weeks two and three.
Upon Further Review: Cowboys plagued by ‘incompetence,’ defensive incompatibility – J.J. Bailey, The Athletic
It’s still early in the season, but fans can only hope this defense doesn’t look like the one under Mike Nolan in 2020.
In this week’s Upon Further Review, Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen of “The Athletic Football Show” peek under the hood in Dallas to see just how bad things have gotten after a Cowboys fan reached out in the “Monday Mourning” segment.
It’s not (or at least it wasn’t) all bad
“When this group was fully healthy over the first few weeks, it was everything I had ever really wanted out of a Dallas Cowboys offense,” Mays said. “I don’t think Brian Schottenheimer is Kyle Shanahan, but I think they were doing what is necessary to get to a place where you are dangerous with Dak Prescott as your quarterback.”
Despite a 1-2 start, Dallas was shining on that side of the ball. Finally armed with two legitimate perimeter receiving options, the Cowboys turned Prescott loose, leading the NFL in pass rate through three weeks. The line allowed the fifth-lowest sack rate, and their quarterback responded by posting the fourth-highest yards per game to go with the fourth-highest completion percentage.
On the ground, the Boys have a league-leading rushing success rate of 50 percent, and are averaging nearly 1.5 yards over expected per attempt, another NFL best. Unfortunately …
A lot of it is really bad
Dallas has allowed 9.1 passing yards per play thus far. Not only is that the highest in the league, but it’s more than a full yard more than the next closest team. They are 15th in pressure rate, 27th in sack rate, and 31st in EPA per pass. For context, the Miami Dolphins have the worst EPA/Pass in the league at +0.40. The Cowboys are right behind them at +0.34. The next closest team is New Orleans, at +0.17.
So is the collapse of the Dallas defense due to new coordinator Matt Eberflus? Is it because Micah Parsons was shipped out of town? Well, why not both?
“On defense, when you’re trying to figure out a coordinator, you go out and get a guy who wants to play a ton of zone when you have constructed your entire DB room over the last four or five years to be this sticky man coverage team,” Mays said. “At the same time, while you’re doing that, you trade away one of the best defensive players in the league. And so on multiple different fronts, you’re just sabotaging whatever this was supposed to be on that side of the ball, and this is what you’re left with.”
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