About 1,100 miles now separate Micah Parsons and Jerry Jones, even if the newest pass rusher for the Green Bay Packers and the owner of the Dallas Cowboys display a magnetic attraction for talking about one another.
Jones was the latest to stoke the lingering drama from the trade of the All-Pro in his physical prime to Green Bay one week before the season began. He said Tuesday — in response to Parsons sharing Sunday night that Jones didn’t call him to inform him of the August trade –that he was just following orders from Parsons.
“I really don’t want to respond to that at all,” Jones said in a radio interview on 105.3 FM in Dallas. “But that phone call thing got stopped when he told me to take his number off my dial. It was don’t call him any more. So I quit those calls.”
Parsons played his first game as a visitor in Dallas on Sunday night, a game that ended in a 40-40 tie when he sacked Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott to force a game-tying field goal.
Parsons said after the game that Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst took the responsibility on his shoulders to inform defensive lineman Kenny Clark he was going from Green Bay to Dallas in the trade that included two first-round picks.
Not hearing from Jones took a lot of the emotion out of Parsons’ return, he said Sunday night.
“Honestly, I think, all the emotions for me, being in Dallas, went away the moment they traded me,” Parsons said. “I didn’t even get to talk to my owner, the person that drafted me. I found out through my agent. So, to me, that emotion side was pointless because the same way he called me into his office, as a man, he couldn’t tell me as a man. So, to me that emotion side was gone. It was more about a respect factor at this point.”
Retracing well-worn ground in the matter, the Cowboys opting not to make Parsons the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL did open the opportunity to sign guard Tyler Smith and cornerback DaRon Bland to long-term extensions. Jones said Tuesday that the Cowboys are in a healthier salary cap position and would like to consider contracts for wide receiver George Pickens and kicker Brandon Aubrey.
Pickens arrived in Dallas via offseason trade with the Pittsburgh Steelers and is in the final year of his contract. Jones described Pickens as an “exemplary” teammate with the same work ethic in preparation.
Aubrey has connected on all nine field goal attempts with a long of 64 yards.
“I’m proud to tell you that we’ve got some outstanding structure in our cap space that will allow us to do a lot of things that I didn’t think (we could) at this time last year,” Jones said. “We got it. We paid a price for it. … We can do it now.”
