Schottenheimer takes Parsons trade in stride and Cowboys newcomer Clark says watch his film

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Brian Schottenheimer will make his head coaching debut with the Dallas Cowboys a week after losing elite pass rusher Micah Parsons, probably his best player, in a trade with Green Bay.

The longtime NFL assistant and son of the late Marty Schottenheimer, a 200-game winner in the league, doesn't seem inclined to blink, even in the face of the NFL opener in prime time against defending champ and NFC East rival Philadelphia on Thursday.

“I stared right down the barrel of the gun and said, ‘Hey, I want to win a Super Bowl,’” Schottenheimer said Friday, a day after the blockbuster deal. “That doesn’t change. We get excited about the pieces that we’re adding. I don’t sit around and think about, ‘Man, this is my first year as the head coach.’ This is part of the business. I’m comfortable with that.”

The immediate piece is defensive tackle Kenny Clark, a nine-year veteran on the verge of his 30th birthday and coming off a season that was less productive than unusual as he played through a toe injury. The longer-term payoff is an extra pair of first-round picks over the next two years.

Owner and general manager Jerry Jones said the Cowboys decided long ago they might want to fortify a porous run defense in a deal involving Parsons if they couldn't agree on a contract extension for the 2021 AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, who was introduced in Green Bay on Friday.

That's the message Clark got when he talked to Jones, who flew the three-time Pro Bowler to his new football home on his private jet.

“That this trade wasn’t getting done unless I was in it,” Clark said of what Jones told him. “That made me feel wanted right there. I’m happy to be here. I’m blessed.”

Clark says he hopes to play against the Eagles, who eliminated Clark's Packers in the wild-card round last January. While he brings a reputation as a community-oriented player, Clark said he can't get caught up in trying to ease the pain for a fan base bummed over losing a popular and productive player.

“That’s not my concern,” Clark said. “My concern is come here, play football, be the best defensive tackle I can be and play ball.”

Clark didn't participate in practice, instead taking the field after his teammates were already there, walking alongside linebacker DeMarvion Overshown, who is on the physically unable to perform list while rehabbing a knee injury.

Clark, who spent his first nine seasons with the Packers after they drafted him in the first round in 2016, was in shorts and wearing his new No. 96. He wore No. 97 in Green Bay.

“Like I said, it was shocking,” Clark said. “I didn’t really have much to say to nobody. Everything just happened so fast. It is what it is. I’m here. This franchise will get everything I got.”

And fans will expect plenty as they adjust to a defense that no longer has a two-time All-Pro.

“Man, you gotta just watch the film,” Clark said. “I don’t do too much talking. Watch the film. My game speaks for itself.”

The locker room was mostly empty after Clark's 15-minute session with reporters, but two young defensive ends who considered Parson a mentor were still there.

Donovan Ezeiruaku, a rookie second-round pick who left a strong impression in his first training camp, was upbeat. Marshawn Kneeland, a promising second-year player, was a bit more subdued. They didn't gloss over the emotions of the previous day.

“I feel like I speak for a lot of the guys, obviously, being surprised, being like, ‘Whoa, that’s our guy,’” Kneeland said. “But we had meetings with coaches and they tell us, ‘Hey, this is football.’ All of us get that opportunity to go up there and prove, yeah, we’re great, too.”

Schottenheimer prides himself on communicating with players, and said he was quick to get on the phone with several after the trade went down.

Among them was cornerback Trevon Diggs, who displayed his bond with Parsons by being his unofficial spokesman as Parsons declined to speak with reporters almost the entire offseason, save for one day early in training camp in California.

Diggs' emoji of choice for X after the trade was a broken heart. Receiver CeeDee Lamb picked the cying emoji. Neither star player was in the locker room when it was open to reporters the day after the deal.

“I wanted them to hear my voice,” Schottenheimer said of talking to about a dozen players individually the day of the trade before addressing the entire team Friday. “You never know how guys are going to take news like that.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

FILE - Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Kenny Clark (97) walks on the field before a NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints Monday, Dec. 23, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File)

FILE - Green Bay Packers defensive tackle Kenny Clark (97) sacks Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa during the second half of an NFL football game Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)

Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer speaks to reporters following a preseason NFL football game against the Atlanta Falcons Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)

FILE - Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons (11) walks on the sideline during an NFL football game against the Carolina Panthers, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Brian Westerholt, File)

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.

The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.

The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.

Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:

Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”

By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.

Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”

She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.

“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.

“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.

“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.

Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”

Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.

“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”

She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.

“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”

She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”

In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.

When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:

“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”

“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”

Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.

FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)