Micah Parsons is coming but Bears should be celebrating a departure

Was it all worthwhile? It helped bring them one division title and later a wild card berth, no playoff victories and they had only one winning season.

Meanwhile, they couldn't draft first-round help for Mitchell Trubisky on the offensive line or bring in another possible defensive player because they'd traded away their two first-round picks.

Whether or not Parsons is enough to make Green Bay better than the Lions or even the Vikings isn't certain. They might be better than the Vikings anyway because Minnesota's quarterback as no experience.

It is certain this doesn't make them better than the Philadelphia Eagles. However, they do have time on their side and Parsons is young enough that he can be part of a young team coming together.

That is, if they can keep it all together now that they're adding another ridiculous contract.

This was also what the Bears experienced with Mack. The cap got out of whack and it became difficult to make up for their lack of first-round draft picks by signing free agents when they were devoting so much money to their expensive edge rusher.

All of this is something for the Packers to ponder but they have their superstar. Don't call him their new Reggie White, because no one would confuse Parsons with the minister of defense. He was possibly the best defensive lineman of all time, or second best if you call Lawrence Taylor the defensive lineman/edge rusher that he really was and not a linebacker.

All of this aside, how it affects the Bears is what's important.

Unlike in the Bears trade, there is a player involved. The player the Packers gave up is defensive tackle Kenny Clark.

It's easy to see why the Cowboys would want Clark. Matt Eberflus is Cowboys defensive coordinator and got to see Clark rip apart his offensive line every time the Packers played the Bears. Matt Nagy got to see Clark rip apart the Bears defensive line every time they played the Packers. Clark spent more time in the Bears backfield than Bears running backs and Fields.

When Clark went against the Bears, for 17 games he had 44 tackles, eight of them for losses, 5 1/2 sacks, 16 quarterback hits, a forced fumble and a recovery.

That is extreme output for a defensive tackle.

Micah Parsons is coming to destroy the Bears. Big deal. Clark has been doing it for 17 games and now the Packers don't have him.

How can it be any worse?

It's funny, but as good as Parsons is supposed to be, Dallas hasn't been higher than 16th against the run in an year. They were 29th, 22nd and 16th twice.

"The facts are specifically, we need to stop the run," Jones told reporters after the trade. "And we haven’t been able to stop the run in key times for several years."

Maybe the Packers run defense gets worse.

As far as the Bears are concerned, they should be happy because Clark is gone. Parsons will simply have to prove he can be dominant against them in the primordial rivalry of the NFL.

In the meantime, maybe the Bears can find ways to score points themselves now with Ben Johnson as coach. He thinks he has some sort of edge on Matt LaFleur, anyway. At least he talks this way.

Now, maybe he can have that same edge over LaFleur with Parsons.