There are winners and losers to everything in life. You get to a gas pump before someone else? You’re a winner, and they’re a loser. Someone grabbed the last chocolate-covered long john before you? You’re a loser, and they’re a winner. The Dallas Cowboys traded Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers for a couple of first-round picks and a defensive tackle who is just fine? The Packers are winners, and the Cowboys are losers.
But when a massive trade like that happens, you have to think about the wake. There are other questions: ‘What about the rest of the league?’ or ‘I like the Bengals, how does this affect me?’ or ‘The Cowboys have been a joke for 30 years, who cares?’ All valid questions and all have answers.
Good timing for some guys, bad timing for others
There are three obvious winners in the Micah Parsons trade: the rest of the NFC East. There are also three obvious losers: The rest of the NFC North. That’s low-hanging fruit. These are the winners and losers who are a few degrees away from everything.
Winner: Aidan Hutchinson
T.J. Watt held the ‘highest paid non-quarterback’ title for a little over a month at $41 million per year. Not only did Micah Parsons get traded to a good team, but he also got paid around $47 million per year. These premier edges are rightfully getting dump truck loads of cash poured into their front lawn. The next one up is the Detroit Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson.
You have to imagine their general manager, Brad Holmes, had one of the worst days ever on August 28th. Not only does he have to deal with Parsons in his division, but the price tag for his second-overall pick in the 2022 draft just skyrocketed.
Back in April, the Lions exercised Hutchinson’s fifth-year option. OverTheCap.com has his price tag projected at $20 million-ish for the 2025 season. When he actually gets his first big-boy contract, he’s going to be looking at a minimum of a $25 million raise off of that.
Loser: Trey Hendrickson
Imagine being Trey Hendrickson: You want a contract extension or a raise, but your team is being super stubborn about it. You don’t go to your spring OTAs, and at the beginning of training camp, you leave the state just to make a point. You end up buckling less than two weeks before the start of the season and get a $14 million raise for the 2025 season.
Then, three days later, the Parsons’ deal happens, the price for sack-getters goes up, and you realize you missed out on a potential $2 to $4 million. That’s gotta be a real kick in the nuts.
On the other side of that coin, if the Bengals were being that stingy, maybe they wouldn’t have paid him the extra money. Who knows? Spin zone: Bengals fans and the Bengals front office are winners, maybe? It’ll be a fun ‘What-if?’ scenario down the road.
Winner: Anyone who had ‘Micah Parsons DPoY’ futures
As soon as Parsons was traded to the Packers, he became the betting favorite for the 2025 Defensive Player of the Year at +500. Since then, the market has kind of corrected itself, and as of 12 pm on Friday, August 29th, 2025, he’s +600 (still the favorite) on DraftKings Sportsbook.
If you were hot on Parsons before the trade, you could’ve had him somewhere around +700 to +850 odds. It’s not like he jumped from +1000 to +500, but it’s still pretty solid.
However, the losers in this situation are the people who bet on Aidan Hutchinson when he was the favorite. Now, he’s +750. Do with that information what you will.
Loser: Grading drafts
The average length of an NFL career is three years. That means the best time to grade a draft is three years after it happened. For example, the Jaguars probably should’ve drafted Aidan Hutchinson first overall in the 2022 draft instead of Travon Walker.
The Cowboys got the Packers’ 2026 and 2027 first-round picks. Assuming the Cowboys don’t trade those picks, there won’t be an accurate grade of this trade until 2030. That’s entirely too long to wait.
In his press conference after the trade, Jerry Jones said, “Those draft picks could get us Pro Bowl players.” First of all, Parsons was already a Pro-Bowler… So that's a dumb thing to say.
Second: It’s such an ‘Old-man Jerry Jones’ thing for him to think that the Pro Bowl actually matters anymore (Tyler Huntley was a Pro-Bowler in 2022). Everyone whose brain isn’t made of dirt knows that All-Pro is the only valid elite team. Jerry Jones: Confirmed mud brain haver.
Parsons is a three-time All-Pro. So sure, maybe Ol’ Jerry can get himself a couple of good players, but that’s nothing compared to what they lost. Unfortunately, we, as a society, will have to wait until 2030 to really blast Jerry Jones about the whole thing. Also, unfortunately, at the rate his brain is deteriorating, he won’t be lucid in 2030.
Hopefully that’s not the case. I think I speak for everyone when I say: I wish for nothing but a long, long, long life for Jerry Jones.