FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Kenny Clark focused on his new teammates after the stocky defensive tackle was traded to the Dallas Cowboys in the blockbuster deal that sent Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers a week before the season.
That's all Clark could do in the whirlwind of the moment as the only tangible and immediate return for a passionate fan base losing one of the most dynamic players in the NFL.
“Like I said weeks before, everybody’s just been welcoming me,” said Clark, who had to say goodbye to the Packers after nine seasons and almost immediately play in the NFL opener at defending champion Philadelphia, a suddenly new division rival in the NFC East. “I’m all about the people. And the people here have been great. My teammates have been great. That’s all you can ask for.”
What the Cowboys (3-4-1), who host Arizona (2-5) on Monday night, got in return was a steadying influence for what has been a mostly rough ride for a defense that ranks among the worst in the league.
Clark hasn't hidden from reporters at the storied franchise's vast headquarters in the suburbs north of Dallas. He stopped outside the locker room to chat with a smaller group of writers, beyond the view of cameras, after a particularly troublesome performance by the defense in a loss at Carolina.
He answered the rosier questions after the best showing of the season in a win over Washington, and again when the issue was consistency in another poor showing at Denver last week.
Clark isn't a vocal leader, but recognized he was immediately one of the most vested veterans the minute he walked into the Dallas locker room. That's where keeping the focus on people helped.
“That’s what makes me happy to come into work and work every day,” Clark said. “That’s what keeps you going. You spend a lot more time with these guys than you do with your own family sometimes. Everybody’s got to be on the same page. It’s a true brotherhood when you come in here, so you’ve got to treat it that way.”
Clark earned the respect of his new teammates by working the same way he did in Green Bay: asking questions, taking notes, treating all the reps the same.
The 30-year-old says he learned that from the Packers veterans he joined as a first-round pick out of UCLA in 2016, the same year star quarterback Dak Prescott went in the fourth round to the Cowboys.
First-year Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer prides himself on getting to know his players as people. He realized recently there's a hole in that resume as it relates to Clark.
“The way he practices, I don’t know where he learned that,” Schottenheimer said. “Actually, I should ask him.”
Whatever the answer, new defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus has noticed, too.
“I wasn’t happy with a couple of walkthrough reps and I showed them that,” Eberflus said, recalling a moment from last month. “And the ones I showed that were really good was him. Really taking his steps, feet, hands and eyes, going through the rudiments of the game, even in the walkthrough. We have to all do that all the time. So there’s a process to it. And he understands that process. That’s why he’s played 10 years."
Clark looks the part of a defensive run stopper, a wide frame at 6-foot-3 and 314 pounds with a low center of gravity. He's a three-time Pro Bowler who has moved beyond an injury-filled 2024 season to give the Cowboys what they sought.
Owner and general manager Jerry Jones said he wouldn't have done the deal without Clark as Dallas tried to improve a persistently subpar run defense. The trade, which gave the Cowboys an extra first-round pick each of the next two drafts, came after months of a contract stalemate with Parsons.
The numbers still aren't good — the Cowboys entered the week ranked 29th against the run — but the interior of the defensive front is less to blame than it used to be.
Fellow defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa knew Clark better than the rest of his Dallas teammates because Clark played with his older brother, Owa Odighizuwa, at UCLA.
Osa Odighizuwa, a third-round pick by Dallas in 2021, signed an $80 million contract extension during the offseason, not realizing he would soon have a pairing that could be in place a few years. Clark is under contract through 2027.
“I’m like, ‘Well, I know he’s going to help,’” Odighizuwa said of his immediate reaction to the trade. “It’s another veteran guy who knows how to do it right, who knows how to work and is going to be able to, one, fall in line with the culture that we have and then, two, just add to it in terms of adding another leader to the room.”
Clark was clear the day he arrived he wouldn't spend much time trying to convince anyone of his value ("Man, you gotta just watch the film"). Two months later, his message hasn't changed.
“All that stuff is behind me,” Clark said. “I’m here now and blessed and excited to be here, just trying to do my best to help this team win football games and just keep getting better.”
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FILE - Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Kenny Clark (95) waits for the snap during a football game against the Washington Commanders, Oct. 19, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter, file)
FILE - Dallas Cowboys' Kenny Clark jogs off the field during an NFL football game against the Washington Commanders, Oct. 19, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez, file)
FILE - Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Kenny Clark (95) runs off the field after an NFL football game against the New York Jets, Oct. 5, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger, file)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An airstrike in Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Wednesday morning appears to have struck inside the former U.S. Embassy compound.
The embassy has been controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard since the 1979 hostage crisis. Its all-volunteer Basij force operates the compound, running an anti-American museum inside the embassy and other in new buildings on its grounds.
Witnesses saw blown-out windows surrounding the massive compound on Tehran’s Taleghani Street. However, there was no missile strike visible around the compound, with witnesses saying they believe the strike happened inside the compound.
The 444-day hostage crisis saw American diplomats held until President Ronald Reagan took office from President Jimmy Carter in 1981.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran hit a tanker off the coast of Qatar and Kuwait International Airport early Wednesday as Tehran remained unrelenting in its attacks on its Gulf Arab neighbors, while acknowledging for the first time that Washington had been in direct contact about a possible ceasefire.
Israel sounded warnings of incoming fire from both Yemen and Iran, while launching its own attacks in Lebanon that killed at least five people.
With no sign of the war abating and more than 3,000 lives already lost, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested it could be over within two weeks even as he moved to bring thousands more troops to the region.
Trump has been under growing pressure to end the war as Iran’s grip on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on regional energy infrastructure have sent gas prices skyrocketing to their highest level since 2022 and caused broad stock market fluctuations.
Iran throttled ship traffic through the strait, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, after it was attacked by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28. In peacetime, a fifth of the world’s oil transits the strait and the spot price of Brent crude, the international standard, is up more than 40% since the start of the war, trading at more than $104 a barrel.
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan aimed at bringing about a ceasefire, which includes a demand for the strait to be reopened. Iran’s own five-point response includes it retaining sovereignty over the waterway, and Trump on Tuesday suggested that the war could be brought to an end even with Iran still controlling the strait.
The U.S. “will not have anything to do with” what happens in the Strait of Hormuz, instead telling reporters that the responsibility for keeping the vital waterway open would belong with countries that rely on it.
“That’s not for us. That’ll be for France. That’ll be for whoever’s using the strait,” Trump said.
It was not clear why Trump brought up France, since Europe receives very little oil shipped through the strait, with most going to Asian countries. The president plans a prime-time address on Wednesday.
Trump, who has vacillated between insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks with Iran and threatening to widen the war, added that the U.S. is “finishing the job” in Iran and predicted it will be “maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job.”
Trump has warned that if a ceasefire is not reached “shortly,” and if the strait is not reopened, the U.S. would broaden its offensive, including by attacking the Kharg Island oil export hub and possibly desalination plants.
Thousands of Marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region in possible preparation for an assault in Kharg, though to reach the island by ship would mean transiting the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, which Iran has threatened to mine.
In an interview with pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged receiving direct messages from U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. He insisted, however, that there were no direct negotiations and said Iran has no faith that talks with the U.S. could yield any results, saying “the trust level is at zero.”
He warned against any attempt to launch a ground offensive, saying “we are waiting for them.”
“We know very well how to defend ourselves,” Araghchi said.
Early Wednesday a tanker off the coast of Qatar was hit with a projectile, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. The crew was reportedly unharmed. A fully-loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker came under attack off Dubai the day before, one of more than 20 ships attacked by Iran during the war.
Bahrain sounded two alerts for incoming missiles, and said an Iranian attack had caused a fire at a business facility.
In Kuwait, the state-run KUNA news agency said a drone had hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport, sparking a “large fire” that crews were working to control.
Two drones were also intercepted in Saudi Arabia, which has come under repeated Iranian attack, and air raid sirens sounded in Israel though there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.
In Iran, Israel said it had hit a plant producing fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, to allegedly be used in a chemical weapons program. Iran acknowledged the strike on Tofigh Daru factory, but insisted it only supplied “hospital drugs” used for medical purposes.
The strike happened Tuesday, both the Israelis and the Iranians said.
Hospitals extensively use fentanyl to treat severe pain. But a small amount of the drug can be fatal.
Both Israel and the United States have alleged in recent years that Iran was experimenting with fentanyl in munitions.
In Beirut, at least five people were killed in an Israeli strike on a Beirut neighborhood. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said another 21 people were wounded.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon after the Iran-linked Hezbollah militant group began launching missiles into northern Israel days after the outbreak of the wider war. Many Lebanese fear another prolonged military occupation.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.
Since the Iran war began, 13 U.S. service members have been killed and 348 wounded, six seriously, according to U.S. Central Command.
More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank.
Rising reported from Bangkok. AP writer Giovanna Dell’Orto in Miami, Florida contributed to this report.
Firefighters and rescue workers work at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
A firefighter extinguishes a car at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Israel's rescue teams and residents take shelter as sirens sounds next to a site struck by an Iranian missile in Bnei Brak, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A police vehicle is seen through a shattered windshield at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Two men ride scooters past charred debris at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
