The Josh Innes Show - The Micah Parsons Trade

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Jerry finally made the move. The world seems to think this makes the Packers a Super Bowl favorite and I don't really see it. How many teams that have elite defenders are actually good teams? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem call connects Ontario 1866531-260. 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. I spent all that time talking about Jerry Jones, and I didn't even bring up the fact that Jerry Jones traded away Micah Parsons. Somehow they traded away Jerry Jones traded away Micah Parsons, and it wasn't even the most controversial trade that's happened in Dallas this year. Pretty crazy, huh? But I got some thoughts on this because I think that people get caught up in the moment and they overreact to a lot of stuff.

And in the moment, everybody acts like what just happened is the biggest thing they've ever seen. It's going to change the world. Let's look into it and see if it really will change the world. All right. Let's get into that after these words. All right. So Micah Parsons is off to Green Bay. Good for Green Bay.

Like, they didn't get worse by adding Micah Parsons. The Cowboys get worse. Like, you don't lose a guy like that and get better, right? Long term, it probably doesn't hurt the Cowboys that much financially and everything else. Like, you got two draft picks out of it, two first-round draft picks. They may not be great draft picks in the next two years, but maybe you package those with your own draft picks and move up. There are other things that you can do and look at this,

and this can end up being a success for the Cowboys. So let's start here, right? And we'll look and see, like I think big picture, I think trades like this have a bigger impact on the rest of the league than they tend to have on the two teams involved, right? While the Cowboys have been a good regular season team in the years that Micah Parsons has been part of the team, let's not act like they've been some sort of juggernaut.

They did have three straight years at 12 and 5. They did win a playoff game. The Cowboys haven't come close to competing for a Super Bowl with Micah Parsons. And with or without him this year, they're probably not competing for a Super Bowl either, right? So how big of a deal is that going to be to whether or not this team is going to win or lose a lot of games? Probably not a ton, right? That's number one from the Cowboys standpoint. Number two, you look at the Packers.

The Packers are obviously a better team now than they were 24 hours ago. You don't get worse by adding Micah Parsons. But in the NFL, and look, I love defensive guys, and there are a ton of great defensive players in the league. But if you look at the best defensive players in the league, there's not some sort of direct correlation with great defensive players and teams that went a lot of football games, right? If you look at the lists of the best defensive players in the league, look at any site that post the top 10 defenders in the league, right? Micah Parsons would probably be at the top of most of those lists, and he's very good. And if you put him into a ready-made Super Bowl contending situation right now, he might obviously be the difference, which I don't think Green Bay is. I don't like Green Bay is fine, but I don't look at Green Bay as a team where I go, they're one piece away.

Like, everybody loves Jordan Love, right? The hype is always around Jordan Love. Can't stay healthy. And is he really that good? Like when I watch Jordan Love, like I love taking his passing yards because they'll find themselves down in games and left to Ling a lot. Before you know, Jordan Love's thrown for 300 yards and they're driving to try to tie a game late. But is Jordan Love the dude? Is Jordan Love truly the answer, right? This is not like a ready made like, oh, we're the Patriots and we have Tom Brady or, oh, we're the

Steelers in the prime of Ben Rothlisberger and Tomlin or the Saints with Drew Breeze. It's not like, like to me, you look at the quarterback. This is obvious. You look at the quarterback and that's how you determine how good a team is and how close a team is. Like when you add a piece like this, do you go, holy shit, we just added a piece that puts us over the top? If you would have put a guy like Micah Parsons or when Trey Hendrickson was being shopped around, like we talked about it here in Detroit, if you would have put a guy like Trey Hendrickson at a position of need for the Lions, a team that needs help defensively, while Aidan Hutchinson's coming back, imagine a world where Hutch is on one side and on the flip side of that, you've got Trey Hendrickson. you're a Super Bowl contender, because you've got the weapons on offense, you've got the quarterback, like you can talk about whether or not you think Jared Gough is great or not, or if he's a product of the system.

Maybe he's a product of the system. But it doesn't matter because he's in that fucking system. Like you love when people shit on a quarterback and say, he's a system guy. Well, is he still in that fucking system? Then he's fucking fine. It's the same thing with Jalen Hertz. Jalen Hertz is not an elite quarterback in terms of talent at being a quarterback. Not a human on the planet.

If given the choice of taking, you know, insert guy with fire, less playoff success in Jalen Hertz, but has, like, everybody goes, Justin Herbert. If you let 30 GMs pick between Justin Herbert and Jalen Hertz, they would all take Justin Herbert. There's no doubt 100% all of them would. But Jalen Hertz, and the system he's in, on the team he plays for, does extremely well. That's why when people say system, system, system and slight guys, if they're still in the fucking system, it doesn't matter.

they're fine and Jared golf is part of this now they got a new offensive coordinator I'm not trying to go down a wormhole of breaking down like like some deep breakdown of the Detroit Lions but like if the Lions would have added you know a guy like Micah Parsons or in the case that I just brought up a guy like Trey Hendrickson they automatically elevate higher in the in the standings of being a Super Bowl contender like like there are some times where a team is just one obvious piece away the 2004 Philadelphia Eagles You know, like the 2004 Philadelphia Eagles had shit wide receivers, right? Go back and look at the 2004. You know, you're looking at like James Thrash and Pinkston, right? 2004 and Freddie Mitchell. Not that Freddie Mitchell suck, but let's be real. Like, if you look at the 2004 Eagles roster and you look, I think that was the year that those were the guys there, right?

And you look at their wide receivers and look at what they had on their depth chart at wide receiver, you'd go, oh, those guys aren't particularly good, right? those are not dudes that are making your skirt blow up with Freddie Mitchell and Todd Pinkston and Greg Lewis, right? Like, just look at their guys. Like, Billy McMullen, like, these are the guys that were the wide receivers for that team. Then you add, oh, Terrell Owens to the mix, and you're like, holy shit, this changes the game. We know that our defense is sick.

We know that our defense has Javon Curse and Corey Simon and Sheldon Brown and, and Brian Dawkins and Michael, like, you knew how good they were. And you felt like the missing piece to make Donovan McNabb and that team better was giving them an elite receiver and that was Terrell Owens and first play of the preseason like an 80-yard touchdown and let's fucking go. Like, I don't get that vibe from the Packers. And I also don't get the vibe that the Cowboys go from being a definite contender to not being a contender by losing Micah Parsons.

again they're not better without him right they're not like you don't sit back and go hey i think that you know this is good stuff like if you're a cowboys fan i get where you're pissed off today because you lose an elite player arguably the best defensive player in the game it's not a good thing to do that but like how many games do you win or lose because of this this year like that is kind of something you have to look to you have to start looking to the future you have to look at the fact that you've won one playoff game everybody loves to shit on jerry jones and the because they don't win enough playoff games and the Cowboys fans like he's got to go. Yet you don't look at the players who are the guys that are not winning these playoff games

and say they got to go. You don't hear Dak's got to go. Well, last time I checked, Dak ain't went a lot of playoff games. And last time I checked Michael Parsons ain't winning a lot of playoff games. Not to say it's all his fault. But when you look at these guys and act like the sky is falling because you lost this guy, this is not Luca. This is not a guy that was in the NBA finals for you a year before

is arguably one of the top five players in a sport where one. player can change an entire franchise. There are very few situations in the NFL where one player completely changes your franchise. You know, Drew Breeze and Sean Payton going to New Orleans change the New Orleans Saints. But that's not something that happens every day. You know, a quarterback can usually do that or in the case of like the 04 Eagles. There was a missing piece and it was filled with the best available person and it sent

them to the Super Bowl. Micah Parsons is not sending the Packers to the Super Bowl. They're better. They get worse by adding them. But when you look at the Packers, do you look at them and go, oh, they're ready made, let's go. Like, this team is good to go. H-O-T-O-G-O.

You can take the Packers hot to go to the Super Bowl. Do you really believe that? No. And then I brought up, like, lists. If you look at like the top 10 defenders in the league, here's a story from NFL Network, and this is from April. The top 10 defenders to build around in 2025. How many of these guys are on winning teams?

I'm talking high-paid defensive. offensive players. How many of them are on good teams? Micah Parsons was number one on this list. The Cowboys sucked last year. Now, they won, what, 36 regular season games in the last three seasons before that and one playoff game. Miles Garrett of the Browns, please let me know what the Browns do. Like, congrats you have Miles Garrett and he's a fucking beast. This is not to demean him or say that he doesn't deserve the money he gets paid. But please tell me what win and loss difference you're getting out of Miles Garrett being on your team. You're fucking not. Pat Sertan, he's a really young dude, of course.

But it's not like the Broncos are winning Super Bowls. T.J. Watt and the Pittsburgh Steelers, they sit in the middle forever. Like, they ain't going to win fewer than eight, but they're probably not going to win 11 or 12 and win the Super Bowl. Nick Bose is one of the rare examples of a guy who's on a team that's been a Super Bowl team. Sauce Gardner of the Jets is on this list. Please enlighten me about all those big-time marquee victories the Jets have had. Max Crosby of the Raiders. again, enlighten me. Tell me where the Raiders have been super good having the seventh best

defensive player in the world. Tell me where the Raiders have changed the world by having Max Crosby. Roquan Smith with the Ravens. The Ravens are just a fucking great organization, but the Ravens also have the quarterback, and they have the history of good defense, and they have the coach, and they have everything in place. Dexter Lawrence of the Giants, you know how shitty the Giants are. And then you get Jalen Carter, who's part of arguably the most well-run organization, maybe in all of sport. But, like, people talk about losing Micah Parsons, like the sky is falling for the Cowboys. The sky wasn't all that high to begin with. And then you look at the Packers, like, here's what I think.

I think moves like this have more of a trickle-down effect in multiple levels for the rest of the league than they do the two teams involved. And I'll explain. Like, you look at the NFC North. You know who was favored to win the NFC North 24 hours ago? The Lions. you know who is no longer favored to win the NFC North? The Lions, right? So there you go.

They play the Lions to start the season. Let me see what the line is in that. I don't know how much it moved. But I would imagine that game was on the road for the Lions. I would imagine that was probably a three point in the line or a point and a half, two points, something like that. My guess would be that it was close to a pick-em because you had home field for the Packers in that situation. They got a benefit for that. But let's just take a look.

Let's look at NFL week one. And let's see what the line is for that game. There we go. NFL, we're looking at that. The spread for that game. And that will be, boy, to kick off the season. Boy, that's a solid fucking game. A nice little afternoon game.

So now the Packers are favored by two and a half in that game. Admittedly, I don't know what the line was yesterday. but Micah Parsons had to have been good for a point or two in that one. So again, that changes the outlook of that division. Every team that is on the Packer's schedule, it changes the outlook for them. Washington, they host Washington in week two. If you're Washington, things change a little bit for you now that Michael Parsons is going to be on the field, right? To me, that's what it means more of.

Are the Cowboys slightly worse or much worse than they were 24 hours ago? So now if you look at Dallas's schedule and they open the season against the Eagles, the Eagles are seeing a different football team than they thought they were going to see. When these two teams play next Thursday, the Eagles have one less dude to look at and worry about. So in the micro of it all, and the micro being like these games and these individual matchups, I think adding or subtracting Micah Parsons plays a much larger role than what it means for these teams big picture. Like, I don't know how many wins Micah Parsons adds to the Packers, right? Like, if you look at the futures bets and you look at the division race and the division champion picks, now you've got the Packers as the favorite in the NFC North. So that changes the outlook a little bit.

But big picture, if you thought the Packers were going to win nine games, does Michael Parsons all of a sudden turn them into a team that's going to win 11 or 12? And I don't think I buy that. And just like the Cowboys, if you thought they were going to win 7, 8, 9, Like, are they now going to win three? You know, you don't want to give up good players. You don't want to lose good players. That's never a good thing.

But people comparing this to, like, Luca. In the NBA, one dude changes the entire franchise. And in the NFL, unless that guy is a quarterback, generally speaking, one dude does not change the franchise. One linebacker. Like, Derek Thomas was my favorite player growing up. One of the best linebackers in the game. And the Kansas City Chiefs won a lot of regular season games.

and couldn't win a fucking playoff game with Derek Thomas. I think they won one. It was one of the years with Joe Montana, so I guess it would have been 93. I think they won one playoff game ever with Derek Thomas. Like, you can have all-time great players. How many all-time great players played for shitty teams that never won a fucking thing? You hear about them all the time. So, I don't know.

I just view this differently. Like, I think it's easy to look at things as like sky is falling and everything sucks. And I don't. maybe I should and that'd be sexier if I did but I just don't anyway more to come