Packers reunite All-Pro with Micah Parsons after Dallas Cowboys make dramatic cut days before end of season

The Dallas Cowboys will end their 2025 NFL season much like how they started it – offloading an All-Pro defender who each found their way to the Green Bay Packers.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the Cowboys were releasing two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Trevon Diggs.

Getty

Getty

A reason for why Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones made that decision has now since emerged, and it doesn’t look good for the organization.

According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, Diggs was cut after making a regulation holiday request to the team – which was denied – after their 30-23 victory over the Washington Commanders on Christmas Day, and going through with his plans anyway.

“My understanding of the Trevon Diggs situation is this: after the #Cowboys finished their Christmas game vs. the Commanders, Diggs requested with HC Brian Schottenheimer to stay in Washington for the holiday since he’s from the area and his family stays there,” Schultz wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday.

“Players often ask for — and are usually granted — additional family time during the holidays if the schedule makes sense (Dallas played Thursday).

“Schotty denied the request. Diggs again said he wanted to be with his family and that if he went back to Dallas, he’d just be flying right back on the first flight out, especially with players having several days off. The team vehemently denied his request again.

“And then today, the team released him. Diggs is healthy and ready to join a new team for the playoffs.“

Financial cost to acquire Diggs revealed

The decision of Dallas to release the 27-year-old marks the end of a tumultuous two-seasons which had seen the relationship between the player and the franchise fracture beyond repair.

After a breakout 2021 campaign, in which he had a league-high 11 interceptions – a figure which hasn’t been seen since Everson Walls in 1981 (also with the Cowboys) – and two of which were returned for touchdowns, Diggs hasn’t quite hit the same heights.

He recorded three interceptions in 2022, and the culmination of his performances across his career at that point saw him rewarded with a five-year, $97 million contract extension in 2023.

However, the 2020 second-round pick tore his left ACL in practice in 2023 after just two games played on the season, and missed an additional six games in 2024 due to an issue in the same knee.

Getty

Getty

Diggs has suited up for the Cowboys just eight times in the 2025 campaign – due to ailments in his right knee and a concussion after an incident involving a television mount at home – in which he has been credited for 27 tackles, two pressures and one tackle for loss.

The Cowboys took exception to how Diggs went about his injury rehabilitation over the past few years.

They also enforced a $500,000 base salary de-escalator after the All-Pro corner failed to take part in 84 percent of the team’s voluntary offseason program, after he chose to do his work away from Dallas and in South Florida.

It looked increasingly more likely as the season went on that the Cowboys would release Diggs after the season, which in turn, would have created an additional $12 million in cap space.

Diggs and Parsons are reunited in Green Bay

Now, Diggs has been claimed off of waivers by the Green Bay Packers and joins a team who have primed themselves into looking like a legitimate Super Bowl over the course of the season.

“If a team were to claim Trevon Diggs off of waivers, it would be on the hook for the $472K he is due in base salary for Week 18, plus $58,823 if he is active this week. Diggs has no guaranteed money on his deal beyond this season,” ESPN NFL analyst Field Yates wrote on Tuesday.

Now we know that the Packers are prepared to pay that cost to bolster their chances of winning the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Diggs’ release one week before the end of the regular season ultimately marks the end of the ‘7/11’ era in Dallas, after pass rusher Micah Parsons was dealt in a blockbuster trade to Green Bay just one week before the start of the campaign.

Just five months ago, Cowboys fans likely never imagined this would be how their season would end, but Jerry Jones has had the final say once again, and Diggs has put a dagger in his former fans’ heart as he now follows Parsons to Wisconsin.

Stay up to date with the latest from the NFL across all platforms – follow our dedicated talkSPORT USA Facebook page and subscribe to our talkSPORT USA YouTube channel for all the news, exclusives, interviews and more.