LaVar Arrington said on Thursday night that the Cowboys were the winners of the 2025 trade with the Green Bay Packers, even as the deal that sent Micah Parsons out of Dallas kept shifting into more pieces. The former Penn State star and longtime NFC East defender did not need much prompting to land there. “If you’re saying addition by subtraction, you probably gotta say,” he said, before starting to mouth the word “Cowboys.” Then he cut himself off and added, “I’m not going to say it!”
The comment mattered because Arrington was not speaking from the distance of a casual viewer. He played seven years in the NFL, all in the NFC East, with six years for Washington and one season for the New York Giants. That background makes his view on a move involving Parsons, one of the most recognizable defenders in the league, feel less like a talking-point flourish and more like a verdict from someone who has lived inside the rivalry. Parsons has remained a name that keeps drawing attention, from trade debate to offseason chatter, including scrutiny around the Packers and Dallas that still follows every turn.
Dallas traded Parsons, Mazi Smith and a 2026 second-round pick and received Kenny Clark, Quinnen Williams, Malachi Lawrence, Devin Moore and LT Overton in return. The Cowboys then used one of the first-round picks they got in the deal to bring in Williams, while the other first-rounder was moved back and turned into two fourth-round selections. That is the part that gives the trade its value argument: Dallas did not just swap stars, it turned draft capital into a veteran addition and then into even more picks.
That maneuvering also fed the financial side of the story. Jerry Jones said the trade created enough wiggle room in the salary cap for Dallas to extend Tyler Smith and DaRon Bland. In plain terms, the team did not only reshape its roster; it also bought itself room to keep two young players it wanted to protect. That is why the trade keeps being judged as more than a one-for-one football move. The Cowboys gave up Parsons, but they came out with a larger stack of assets, a clearer cap picture and enough flexibility to keep building around it.
The friction is that Arrington has ties to Parsons and has not exactly been a friend of the Dallas franchise, yet he still landed on the Cowboys side of the ledger. That makes his view harder to dismiss and more interesting to hear. He was not celebrating the trade as a fan of Dallas. He was weighing what the club actually got back, and the answer he settled on was that the Cowboys won. The unresolved question now is whether that judgment holds once the roster pieces settle and Williams, the added picks and the cap room are all measured against the player Dallas sent away.
