Jerry Jones just cannot help himself.
The owner of the Dallas Cowboys has found himself in the middle of another high-profile contract spat, this time with Micah Parsons, who just so happens to be one of the best pass rushers in the game.
Parsons took to social media on Friday to announce that he personally submitted a trade request to the Cowboys.
“Unfortunately, I no longer want to be here,” Parsons wrote in a long Notes app statement. “I no longer want to be held to closed-door negotiations without my agent present.”
Parsons documented his entire gripe with the Cowboys in great detail. It all began last offseason, after Parsons’ third year with the Cowboys, when he instructed his agent to begin contract extension negotiations. No response from the team.
After last season, Parsons ignored the advice of his agent and wanted to extend his contract to remain in Dallas before Myles Garrett, T.J. Watt and Maxx Crosby inked their own deals. Still, the team decided to go silent.
At just 26 years old, Parsons is one of the league’s best at his position. This next contract would secure one of the top pass rushers in football throughout the prime of his career. But despite the social media outrage, Jones is staying firm in negotiations with Parsons, who is now holding out of practice upon filing his trade request.
The Penn State product is set to play on his fifth-year option worth $24 million this upcoming season. After that, if nothing gets worked out long term with the Cowboys, he will be an unrestricted free agent—unless the team continues to play hardball and franchise tags him.
Nationally, there have been some questions about Parsons’ maturity. Namely, some of his teammates reportedly did not appreciate comments that Parsons shared on his podcast and the Cowboys considered trading him because of it. But that’s almost beside the point.
This continues to be an annual headache for the Cowboys. Maybe Jones just loves the media attention so much that he plays hardball with his players so the talk show pundits keep Dallas in the headlines. It’s hard to find any other justification for not taking care of one of the best defenders in football.
A few years ago, one of the original disputes was with quarterback Dak Prescott, who the team franchise tagged in 2020 before reaching a long-term deal in 2021. Last season, the fight was with wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, who was undoubtedly one of the best in the game at his position.
In the aftermath of the Parsons drama, Jones claimed that Jay-Z’s Roc Nation didn’t return a phone call from the Cowboys during the 2015 contract talks with receiver Dez Bryant. Roc Nation responded with a statement clapping back at Jones, calling it a false and laughable recollection of the negotiation.
That was a full decade ago, and we’re still rehashing it because the issue persists—Jones is a tough negotiator who does not hand out big-money extensions easily.
But when you have elite players like Parsons in the midst of their prime, just pay them what they are worth and avoid this massive headache altogether.
