ARLINGTON — He arrived on the last bus, some two-and-a-half hours before kickoff, and stepped off into the tunnel he once roamed.
Headphones plugged his ears and his right hand dragged a suitcase at his side. He did not speak. His eyes darted between his cell phone and the teammate’s head in front of them as they inched toward a metal detector.
Imagine, like, an early morning line for a Transportation Safety Authority checkpoint at the airport. Minus the pinstriped double-breasted suit, the earrings that cost more than a round trip and the droves of cameramen that waited an hour-and-a-half for his arrival.
This whole ordeal, Green Bay Packers linebacker Micah Parsons said earlier this week, is something that “the media and the fans are trying to blow up to be such a big thing.”
Cowboys
Sunday’s game at AT&T Stadium — Parsons’ first since the Dallas Cowboys dealt the 26-year-old superstar to the contenders up north — is “just another game” at his former place of employment.
The fervor suggests otherwise.
Green Bay Packers defensive end Micah Parsons arrives at AT&T Stadium in Arlington with his team to face the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, September 28, 2025.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
“I accepted my fate weeks ago when the trade happened,” Parsons said this week before he and his teammates trekked south for the primetime game. “So for me, it’s just all about playing another game and just doing what I do best, and that’s just be a disruptive football player.”
His presence was disruptive Sunday before the game began. Packers fans filled the open-roofed stadium early. They might not have outnumbered Cowboys fans — though, without a doubt, there were far more cheeseheads than Stetsons worn in the stands — but the green No. 1 Parsons jerseys might’ve had the navy No. 11 Parsons jerseys beaten. Half a dozen “Go Pack Go” chants boomed pregame. The local fans countered with boos.
Parsons ran through a tunnel at the 50-yard line and onto the field for the first time with just over half an hour before kickoff. He and his teammates were met by a mixed chorus of cheers from the large contingent of Green Bay fans and scattered boos.
To the left, while Parsons joined his team for warmups, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sat at NBC’s sideline desk with former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett and reporter Maria Taylor.
“The green and gold is a problem for me, looking at it,” Jones said when Parsons walked out. “But I have to think about the kind of consideration that we got on the trade.”
The Cowboys dealt Parsons to the Packers on Aug. 28 — nearly one month after the three-time All-Pro publicly requested a trade at the start of training camp — and ended a monthslong will-they-won’t-they between Jones and the star defender.
The consideration, as Jones put it, included nose tackle Kenny Clark (whose first game vs. his former team has been reduced to an undercard), a pair of first-round picks and added flexibility to maneuver in the future. Jones pitched the thought process while on NBC Sunday night. He referenced the Herschel Walker trade in the process. Earlier in the week, on 105.3 The Fan, he said that Parsons “was played by teams against us over the last four years.”
“Being trite,” Jones said Friday in that radio appearance, “we lost games with Micah. That is a trite statement, but we did.”
Parsons, who has not recorded an episode of his podcast “The Edge” since he was traded, said last week that it will be “painful” to sack Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
He recorded 27.5 career sacks at AT&T Stadium as a member of the Cowboys and, in three games with the Packers, has sacked the quarterback one-and-a-half times. Parsons was named a captain for Sunday’s game and met the Cowboys contingent at midfield for the coin toss. He dapped up Prescott, Clark and a handful of his former teammates before he sprinted back to the visitor’s sideline.
Green Bay Packers linebacker Micah Parsons (1) takes the field to warm up before an NFL football game against the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025, in Arlington.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
“If I could say one thing to Micah Parsons before the game,” Jones said from his office desk in a pre-recorded interview with NBC Sports, “It would be that, No. 1, I know how we feel about each other, and how much I respect him, and what a great player that I think he is.”
A sizzle reel of highlights, followed by a clip of Parsons’ post-trade statement that he didn’t hear from Jones after the transaction, played before the 82-year-old owner continued.
“My expectation is for him to go out there and make some very significant plays,” Jones said. “He’ll do that, you know?”
Yeah, we know.
Everyone in the building Sunday night does.
On both sidelines.
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