Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons was dead set on not going to the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2021 NFL Draft.

Since his arrival in 2021, Dallas Cowboys pass-rusher Micah Parsons has established himself as one of the league’s brightest defensive stars.

In three seasons, Parsons has shattered every expectation laid before him. The former No. 12 overall pick out of Penn State has racked up 40.5 sacks, earned three All-Pro selections (two first-team and one second-team) and finished in the top three of Defensive Player of the Year voting all three seasons.

If certain events before the draft went differently, though, Parsons could have been tormenting the Cowboys instead of their opponents. The arch-rival Philadelphia Eagles had interest in Parsons, but ironically, his hometown team was the one club he didn’t want to go to.

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On the most-recent episode of The Edge With Micah Parsons, the Cowboys star told Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love why he didn’t want to join the Eagles, and the lengths he went to avoid such a fate.

“So I was like ‘Man, like there’s only certain teams’ and they said ‘You could go to Philly,’ but I skipped my Philly interview, people don’t know that. I didn’t want to stay home. True story, like Dave called me like ‘Yo, you dealing with all this off the field stuff and you don’t even want to talk to Philly?’ Like, I didn’t want to go home. So like when Philly fans talk to me like ‘Man, you should come to Philly,’ I’m like ‘Bro, I do not want to play at home.

“It’s a lot, bro. When you’re at the crib, everyone want to come, everyone being in the mix, like the influence to always want to go back home. Like, at some point you just got to be a man, like I wanted to get a fresh start. And you gotta think, I went to Penn State, like, it was time for me to get out of Penn.”

In an ironic twist of fate, the Eagles ended up giving the Cowboys the pick they used to select Parsons. The two division rivals struck a deal so Philadelphia could leapfrog another NFC East team in the New York Giants to get receiver DeVonta Smith at No. 10 overall. In return, Dallas received the No. 12 and No. 84 picks, the former of which they used to draft Parsons.

That trade has proven to be a win-win for both teams made even better by the fact that they were able to hurt another rival in the process. However, one has to wonder if the Eagles regret handing one of the best pass-rushers in the league to their most-hated foe.