The short-term third-party beneficiaries of the Micah Parsons trade were the Eagles. They’ll no longer have to face him, twice per year. More immediately, they’ll avoid him in the Week 1 opener.
Via Todd Archer of ESPN.com, Philly tackle Jordan Mailata called the news a “sigh of relief.”
“It’s just kind of crazy,” Mailata said. “The last four or five years we’ve played the Dallas Cowboys, we’ve come up with a game plan [for him] because Micah’s a game wrecker. . . . However, that is a talented D-line and a talented defense, so you have to treat them with the same respect with or without Micah Parsons.”
It meshes with key insights from former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett on Friday’s PFT Live. Teams need to have a plan for Parsons. They need to know where he is on every play, and they need to know how they’re going to stop him. Or at least how they’ll try.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni kept his cards a little closer to the vest when asked right out of the gates about the Parsons trade
“We have so much going on here,” Sirianni said, via quotes distributed by the team. “We’re getting ready to play the Cowboys, so he’s in your thoughts for game planning, but they still have guys that we have to prepare for. They have Kenny Clark, who’s a really good player, and they have good depth at that defensive end group. You don’t get too wrapped up in that except for some of the things you’re doing with the game plan. But, also understanding that they have a lot of good players over there and getting ready for those guys and shifting your attention to that.”
While the Eagles have avoided Parsons for now, they’ll see him in Week 10, on Monday Night Football from Lambeau Field. And, frankly, his presence on the Packers could be more detrimental to the Eagles getting back to the Super Bowl.
The Eagles were already objectively better than the Cowboys. The Packers gave the Eagles a pretty tough contest in the 2024 wild-card round. If they meet in the postseason again, Micah could end up being the difference-maker.