Jerry Jones sent Micah Parsons, the best pure pass rusher in football and the centerpiece of a Dallas defense that has spent three years trying to be scary again, to the Green Bay Packers, and then went on the radio to defend it like a man explaining why he sold the house with the pool. Parsons wanted to be paid like the game's top edge rusher. Jones, who owns the Cowboys outright and answers to no board, decided he would rather own the disagreement than the extension. That is the actual story: not a scheme fit, a solvency test between a $10 billion owner and a 27-year-old who just watched Dallas rank near the bottom of the league in sacks without him.

Green Bay gets a player who wins his rep as fast as anyone lines up across from him. Dallas gets draft capital, cap room, and Jones's insistence that the defense will be fine, which is what every owner says the week he trades away its best argument. The Cowboys open the season against Parsons's old locker room within the year's slate. Circle it.