It has felt like months since Sunday Night Football has delivered on the reputation that it has. When you hear 'Sunday Night Football,' you expect the best matchups in the league. Super Bowl contenders, superstars, rivalries. Week 1 started this season strong with a heavyweight duel between the AFC's two reigning big play titans: the Ravens and the Bills. And it gave us everything: a shootout between two offensive juggernauts, the two best quarterbacks in the league this season one-upping each other, and even high drama and a massive comeback win.
And then Week 2 happened. Bijan Robinson was great, but the McCarthy/Penix puke-fest would have needed to be truly transcendent to overshadow the boring matchup. And then Week 3 gave us the Russell Wilson hangover game and a Chiefs team that made you sit up and cheer for Tyquan Thornton. At least Cam Skattebo showed up under the bright lights (102 rush yards, 2TDs).
But Week 4 is here to cure all of that. Because Micah Parsons, Jerry Jones' prodigal son, is coming back home to Dallas. And the measurables speak for themselves: this is going to be a bloodbath.
Everything you need to know about Micah Parsons' homecoming
Obviously, the first thing that is on Parsons' hypothetical vision board going into Week 4 is his exit from Dallas. To recap: despite being eligible for a massive contract extension by his third year in the league (at which point he was comfortably clearing 12 sacks per season), Parsons entered into his fifth season as a Cowboy without any deal being set in stone, with the team merely optioning in on his fifth year. And despite he and his agent not having set anything in stone, team owner Jerry Jones made it publicly clear that a one-off conversation between him and Parsons in March of 2025 was all that was needed to set any upcoming contract as is -- negotiation finished.
The back-and-forth escalated until Parsons formally requested a trade, citing his frustration at the disrespect from the Dallas front office towards him during 'negotiations.'
"Up to today, the team has not had a single conversation with my agent about a contract. Not one demand has been made by my agent about money, years or anything else. But, still I stayed quiet but again after repeated shots at myself and all the narratives I have made a tough decision I no longer want to play for the Dallas Cowboys."
Those narratives he mentioned were, to put it mildly, not helped by the involvement of Jerry Jones, who has continued to speak his mind ahead of the Cowboys/Packers showdown:
"While he does make great plays, there is also a way to approach playing against Micah as we know because we didn't exactly win the Super Bowl during those years."
Of course, you likely know the rest. Two first round picks and Kenny Clark. $188 million. And for all of Jones' big talk about Parsons' impact, we've all been watching football over the past month. But if you haven't, let's look at the stats.
Going into Week 4, Green Bay lead the league in scoring defense (14.7 points allowed/games) and yards per play allowed (3.7), while placing third in yards allowed per game (232.3). In 16 third down snaps, the trio of Parsons, Rashan Gary, and Lukas Van Ness have allowed just 1.5 yards per play. The team's pressure rate has spiked from 32.3% in 2024 to 36.6% through three weeks, and their defense has allowed the fewest explosive plays per game of any team in the NFL.
Meanwhile, Dallas has allowed just over 30 points and nearly 400 total yards per game, and has less total sacks (4) than just the duo of Parsons and Gary (6). Moreover, they allowed Russell Wilson, who legitimately might retire in the middle of the season if things go poorly, to post his single-game career high in passing yards, and then singlehandedly probably saved Caleb Williams' career.
So, not only did the Cowboys mess up a record-breaking contract extension for the player who was probably the most worth it in recent memory -- at least compared to the deals they gave Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott -- but their owner, who Parsons seemed to truly respect and feel a partnership with, talked trash the entire time. And not only that, but Parsons was proved to be correct on all counts after he ended up getting traded.
The Packers are Super Bowl contenders with a league-leading defense with him at the head (by the way, they're doing all this with less than a month of preseason practice time logged with Parsons in tow), they did give him the record-breaking money he felt worthy off, and Dallas' defense has clearly fallen apart without him. And to cap it all off with a game against an offense robbed of CeeDee Lamb while trotting out one of the worst-rated offensive lines in the league? Even if Micah Parsons wants to downplay this game, Week 4 is an opportunity that the Packers, who already have a Wikipedia-worthy rivalry with Dallas, to put the Cowboys in their place in embarrassing fashion.
All of that to say: if the past two weeks of Sunday Night Football have been a snoozefest, prepare to be woken up. Violently.