Mac Engel: Micah Parsons contract fight with Cowboys is a tired TV show
Published in Football
FORT WORTH, Texas — In two weeks Netflix will drop its documentary on the life of Jerry Jones, during which our resident Pro Football Hall of Famer will stare into the camera and proudly admit that his toy is nothing more than a soap opera.
(In soap opera language, this means Jerry is Stefano DiMera from “Day of Our Lives.”)
Dated references aside, of the many tentacles to the man’s legacy on America and pro sports is that he recognized, and naturally monetized, the value of content well beyond the game itself. He recognized that teams, and leagues, could cash in just by talking about them 24/7, even when nothing is happening.
We all fell/fall for it. No matter how spectacularly redundant. That’s how a team that is so average on the field for the better part of 25 years is the most valuable pro sports franchise in the world; not results, talk.
Jerry’s latest episode is the fake drama over his best defensive player “stuck” in a contract negotiation that he is designed to lose, because if Micah Parsons exercises his one piece of real leverage it will cost him the type of money that his agent should tell him, “Don’t blow this.”
“One thing I would say to our fans,” Jerry told reporters after a practice on Saturday in Oxnard, Calif., “don’t lose any sleep over this.”
We’re not. Because we know how this is going to go, right down to the disappointing dud finale in January. The only thing this fake story is missing is Jerry asking, “Micah Who?” which would come with its own apparel line.
Parsons’ game of chicken teriyaki with Jerry, Stephen, Charlotte, Rowdy and Co. now includes an empty trade request that will ultimately result in the player signing a contract before the start of the season. This contract will look a lot like the deals signed by Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt and Cleveland’s Myles Garrett.
It was in February when Garrett told the Browns he wanted to be traded; about one month later, a miracle happened. He changed his mind when he signed a four-year, $160 million extension that included $123.5 million in guarantees. The lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.
In July, the Steelers were in a sticky situation with Watt. Words were exchanged. Watt signed a four-year, $144 million extension.
Parsons will soon sign something in the neighborhood of these deals.
Thanks to Jerry and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hammering the NFL Player’s Association in collective bargaining agreements, these contracts are all but pre-determined and leave little to the imagination, or use, of an agent who has to work their magic to convince clients they are dead without him.
In recent memory, Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Zack Martin, Zeke Elliott and Dez Bryant all had unnecessarily protracted contract extension negotiations that all resulted in the same thing: They signed big deals, and didn’t miss any meaningful time as a result.
Each negotiation came with a degree of theatrics in which the only thing that really happened was the Cowboys spent more money on those respective deals that they could have saved had they just signed the player earlier.
The Cowboys won’t do anything until they don’t have to. They don’t have to sign any player any earlier than necessary. As of Aug. 3, 2025, signing Parsons to an extension is not necessary. It wasn’t like he was going to practice much anyways.
Waiting to complete these contract extensions does impact the team’s salary cap, but ... who cares? Priorities are priorities. There is fun to be had first, and that’s not at a negotiating table with an agent.
When the team owner is the GM, and the vice president and heir to both jobs is the son, there are no real consequences to much of anything.
The only one of these deals that a critic could argue had a negative impact on performance was Lamb last season. Lamb basically sat out the entire offseason until his deal was done in late August, and the time missed may have impacted the performance in the early part of the season. Even that argument feels like a reach.
Unless Parsons is galactically stupid, he will soon sign a giant contract extension and all of these hurt feelings and trade requests will not be shelved but flushed. Jerry understands better than anyone that most feelings can be improved with cash.
He also understands as well as anyone nothing is really happening here other than two sides languaging their way through a contract negotiation that is essentially pre-determined.
Micah will get his money. He will want to be “a Cowboy for life.”
The Cowboys will flop in the playoffs. If they actually get there.
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