Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones might be in the Hall of Fame, but his best days have passed him by. With all due respect to Mr. Jones and what he's accomplished in the NFL, he's one of the worst owners in professional sports in 2025, and Denver Broncos fans should be grateful for Greg Penner and the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group.
Jones just made one of the worst trades in NFL history, sending superstar pass rusher Micah Parsons, who is just 26 years old, to the Green Bay Packers for Kenny Clark and a pair of first-round picks. Yes, those draft picks can turn into solid players, maybe even great players, but it doesn't change the fact that Jones made a hysterically bad trade.
Parsons is on a Hall of Fame trajectory with a whopping 52.5 sacks in his first four NFL seasons, and there's a reason why the Green Bay Packers were willing to give up the assets and $47 million per year in a record salary to get him.
Broncos fans should be grateful Greg Penner is nothing like Jerry Jones
I spoke with Micah Parsons this evening. He says “genuinely gonna miss ya’ll”
— Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) August 28, 2025
He says he and his team went back to the Cowboys about an extension with “empathy” when the trade interest was leaked this week.
The Cowboys response according to Parsons was “play on the 5th year…
There will always be two sides to every story. There's his, hers, and the truth. But given what we know of negotiations with players like CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott prior to the Cowboys trading away Micah Parsons, everything Parsons is saying is extremely believable. In fact, it would be shocking if it weren't true.
The Cowboys have a way of operating that has driven their fans absolutely nuts in recent years, and this is an example of what happens when you push people beyond the limits.
It would be similar to if the Denver Broncos traded Pat Surtain to the Ravens for a couple of first-round picks and an aging safety. The Cowboys made a horrible trade to make a point that they had drawn a line in the sand with Parsons, and it's a horrible look for every player that comes through that program.
The Broncos have been making a habit of paying all their top players in recent years, and paying them market value. We'll see how the Parsons deal affects Nik Bonitto, but for contract negotiations to get so public like this, and for Jones to be willing to take this kind of deal for Parsons?
It's not just bad business but roster malpractice. Jones has actively made his team worse, trading a player on a true Hall of Fame trajectory for a couple of lottery tickets. And with all due respect to Kenny Clark, the player coming back to Dallas in this trade is going to be 30 years old in October. Clark is a good and even seriously underrated player, but his presence in the trade is not even a consolation to Cowboys fans at this point.
He's not going to be around as long.
Micah Parsons should have been a Cowboys lifer. They had a much better shot at winning a championship with him on the team, now or into the future. Dallas has now lost both Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence in the same offseason.
Meanwhile, Greg Penner lets the football people make the football decisions. He's learning the game, but he's not meddling in their day-to-day. Penner allows GM George Paton to be a GM. He allows Sean Payton to be a head coach. Jerry Jones is a classic micromanager whose team hasn't really been relevant in 30 years. And it's his fault.