Philadelphia Eagles made a ‘strong play’ for Micah Parsons trade with Dallas Cowboys

The NFL season is finally here, and it’s going to open with the defending Super Bowl champion, the Philadelphia Eagles, taking on one of their biggest rivals, the Dallas Cowboys. This comes just days after the Cowboys ended their offseason-long saga with Micah Parsons by trading him to the Green Bay Packers.

Of course, the Packers weren’t the only suitor for Parsons. It’s now been reported by Adam Schefter on Get Up that the Eagles were also aggressive in their pursuit of Parsons. However, Dallas didn’t want to make a trade with a rival it sees twice per season.

“It’s certainly interesting because when the Dallas Cowboys were looking to trade Micah Parsons,” Schefter said. “One of the teams that showed the most interest in trading for Micah Parsons was the Philadelphia Eagles. They were fairly aggressive in trying to trade for Parsons, but the Dallas Cowboys, obviously, were not interested in trading Micah Parsons back to Pennsylvania, back in the division. They wanted him out of the division.”

Micah Parsons is a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He’d go on to be a star at Penn State before becoming a first round NFL Draft pick by the Dallas Cowboys. Since then, he’s gone on to become one of the best defensive players in football.

In the end, Green Bay sent two first-round picks in the 2026 and 2027 NFL Drafts, as well as three-time Pro Bowl DT Kenny Clark, to Dallas. Parsons, meanwhile, was sent to a new team within the conference. He’s now expected to sign a four-year, $188 million deal.

“I think there’s been a lot of talk about why they sent him to Green Bay,” Schefter said. “Why they sent him in conference. Well, at least they didn’t send him in the division.”

It would, on paper, be difficult for the Eagles to make the trade work financially. They’re tight on cap space compared to other teams. Still, that aggressiveness was there and is likely a contributing factor to their consistent success in recent seasons.

“The other thing that stands out that’s interesting to me about this is people say all the time that, hey, you can’t afford to make this move. There’s not a lot of teams that have less cash, less cap space than the Philadelphia Eagles,” Schefter said. “And yet, they were trying to figure out a way and would have figured out a way to get Micah Parsons under the cap if Dallas was going to trade him to the Eagles, which they weren’t, but the Eagles certainly made an effort.”

The Eagles will host the Cowboys on Thursday, September 4th, to open the NFL season. It will be a banner night for Philadelphia, as they celebrate their second Super Bowl win since 2017. The Cowboys, meanwhile, are looking to make the NFC Championship for the first time since 1995 this season. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:20 p.m. EST.

Jerry Jones rationalizes Micah Parsons trade

There is a rationale to trading Micah Parsons. As Jerry Jones explained during an appearance on Good Morning America, it allows for roster flexibility and potentially great players in the future. That wouldn’t be necessarily possible with that financial investment in Parsons.

“We have two kinds of capital or currency in the NFL,” Jerry Jones said. “One of them is draft picks. The other is the financial, because every team is limited to the same amount of resources to spend, and having said that, Micah enabled us to have four, possibly as many as six players, for the future. That’s a good trade when you need numbers. I’ll take the numbers every time.”