We already know how this will end. At some point, like always, Jerry Jones will rope his scraggly arm around his star player at a press conference announcing a generational contract and we’ll realize that no matter of huffing and puffing can blow the house down. The Cowboys’ quest for maintaining a star-studded mediocrity—kind of like the 2015 attempt at a Fantastic Four movie—is absolute and unchanging. It is a constant in the universe.
However, what matters about the Micah Parsons situation in particular is how both sides have attempted to go about it. On Friday, The Athletic reported that Parsons was browsing the nuclear manual, before settling on his weapon of choice. After trying to decide between a trade request and—I believe this is a first—simply severing all ties with the team that drafted him, Parsons posted an official trade request on X, formerly known as Twitter. While the mechanics behind that are hazy at best, one has to give a commendation for the theatrics.
And that’s what we need to talk about.
For the first time, one of Jones’s players is trying to out-Jerry the man himself. Jones has made a living on oil rights and carnival barking, the latter of which has served his NFL career quite well. But for the most part, as he sloppily waxes on about the state of negotiations, serially mispronouncing names and diminishing the accomplishments of players his team heavily depends on, many of those players end up disappearing until the storm blows over. It’s one of Jones’s toxic traits come to life; a way to get even with the football player he was never able to become, using his riches as a kind of step ladder on which to stand. Players seem to universally understand this and adopt a collective eyeroll in the process. You’ll all remember when Ezekiel Elliott took the first flight to Cabo San Lucas when his holdout became too acrimonious in 2019.
But if Parsons is serious about taking his belief to the extreme, we may finally see the outer reaches of a Cowboys negotiating playbook that has been in place for several decades now.
Jones has caved monumentally in the past. When Emmitt Smith held out back in 1993 and Dallas was blown out by Washington in Week 1 on Monday Night Football and lost a close game to Buffalo the following week, Smith soon became the highest paid running back in NFL history. This, despite the fact that Jones thought he built in some leverage with the selection of fourth-round pick Derrick Lassic (just like the thought he built in leverage on Elliott later on by hyping Tony Pollard and leverage on Dak Prescott by bringing in Trey Lance).
What we have always known is that these deals get done eventually. What no one has ever called Jones on is the absurd process by which it takes to get there. Parsons is attempting this at a fascinating time when Jones is taken less seriously as a football mind than ever before. The Cowboys are, for the last 20 years, known for a lack of playoff success and the absolutely hilarious distinction of blowing two advantageous quarterback windows in which an undrafted free agent (Tony Romo) and fourth-round draft pick (Prescott) rose to prominence within the franchise.
This offseason, Jones made one of the most questionable and unpopular coaching hires of the past quarter century, destabilizing a fan base that has gone from skipping training camp entirely to showing up in small droves just for a chance to yell at Jones in public (about paying Parsons, by the way).
Parsons, who is a brand unto himself and not, as Dallas believes, a product of The Star, is wrapping his hands around the big club and attempting to swing back. His statement was thorough and revealed one of Jones’s notoriously low-brow tactics, which involve trying to negotiate contracts without an agent present (a ploy that is not only despicable but also, on its face, assumes lesser intelligence of the player on the other side of the table). After the post, CeeDee Lamb, another player that Jones dragged his feet on paying, posted: “Never fails dawg. Just pay the man what you owe him. No need for the extra curricular.”
Parsons showed the strength of his own platform. He has the skillset and the potential to become one of the greatest players to ever play his position. He is in line for a market-shattering contract and, because of the rigors of an NFL career, is not keen on stepping out onto the field under his club option. Nor should he. Getting personal with Jones and demanding a trade finally takes the battle to a different frontier, out of the aw-shucks cornfield that Jones routinely plays in, where he can elbow his fan base in the ribs and casually dismiss any player who wants fair market value as greedy or weak.
What Jones fails to grasp—and what Parsons is trying to capitalize on—is how tired everyone else is of his whole dated milieu. How other successful teams, especially within the division and conference, are finding edges by signing young talent early and, in the process, allowing those players to become an invested and loyal part of the culture. (Parsons was sure to mention in his trade request that Dallas did not respond to a request to get a deal done early when his agent requested a year ago.) Dallas, like the dead-inside corporation you might work for, is one of those places that forces you to pack your bags and accept another offer before considering a raise.
Parsons just started looking at a nice set of suitcases.
Will it matter? I still don’t think so. Jones is going to fork over the money because he always does. Inside, the facade covers up a man who can’t stand to be disliked. But here’s hoping Parsons can help streamline the process—not just for himself, but any other time Jones decides to turn a routine and obvious transaction into a needless performance that only serves to diminish his organization’s chances of actually finding success.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Micah Parsons May Have Asked for a Trade, but Expect Jerry Jones to Still Pay Up.
