When it comes to handling their best young players, the Cowboys are cheap, short-sighted, and not as smart as they think they are.
I said that last year (repeatedly), when they were starting to drag their fee as to quarterback Dak Prescott and receiver CeeDee Lamb. This year, as the Cowboys continue to drag their feet regarding linebacker Micah Parsons, it’s even more clear.
Appearing The Undertaker on the Six Feet Under podcast, Parsons made it clear that he wanted to get his contract done by now — and that it’s the team’s fault that the deal hasn’t been done.
“We obviously wanted to get done early,” Parsons said. “We want that relief off our backs. But, obviously, ownership is always gonna make it drag out, make it more complicated than it has to be. Lack of communication and that standpoint, but, you know, I just always say, God has me this far, he ain’t done with me yet, so, you know, I just just keep working, keep going, and then when it comes, I’m gonna be ready. But, you know, ain’t gonna be no drop off.”
The fact that Parsons specifically said there will be no drop off makes us wonder whether the Cowboys have expressed concern that, once Parsons joins the $40 million per year club, he may have a dip in his play. Regardless, the longer the team waits, the more expensive it will be.
“We wanted to do the contract last year,” Parsons said. “They were just kind of like, ‘We want to do Dak and CeeDee.’ Then you go out there and perform again and, you know, you would think, like, alright, we’ll get it done early. We know there’s some guys that’s about to get ready to get repaid, like Myles [Garrett], you know, Max [Crosby] is gone. So you’d think like, hey, let’s get ahead of that, you know what I mean?”
The Crosby deal and then the Garrett deal pushed the market higher and higher. And the clock is ticking louder and louder.
Parsons should not show up until he gets his contract. If he does, he absolutely should not set foot on the practice field.
Eventually, he’ll get paid. And the Cowboys will end up paying Parsons a lot more than they would have paid if they’d done it earlier this year or, even better, last year.
Tick, tick, tick. . . .
The Cowboys report to training camp next week, and star edge rusher Micah Parsons remains without a contract extension. Parsons previously sounded as if he will show up, but he is unlikely to participate until he signs his deal.
The Cowboys will pay him; it’s just a matter of when.
“I’m just going to get mine no matter what [happens with other top pass rushers seeking deals],” Parsons said Tuesday after his camp in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, via Nick Farabaugh of pennlive.com.
Parsons became eligible for a contract extension after the 2023 season. He still is waiting, something he previously has said will cost the Cowboys more money.
Parsons said he is letting agent David Mulugheta handle his business with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as he concentrates on getting ready for the season.
“I just work harder,” Parsons said of not having a deal completed yet. “Like, to me, I look at it like if people don’t see your value, you don’t cry and sit down. You just work harder. You got to show people your value. I just think that’s, the difference, Like I go, ‘OK, bet,’ and I just work.”
Parsons is headed into the final year of his rookie deal scheduled to make $24 million on the fifth-year option. He is expected to become the highest-paid non-quarterback, surpassing the $40.25 million annual average of Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase.
Cleveland’s Myles Garrett became the highest-paid edge rusher this offseason with a contract that averages $40 million.
Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt and Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson, like Parsons, are awaiting contract extensions. Lions edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson became eligible for a new deal after last season, though he is coming back from a broken fibula and tibia that prematurely ended his season.
Parsons said he doesn’t need to wait on any of them to know his value. He’s ready to sign when the Cowboys are ready to sign him.
“They numbers got nothing to do with mine, and my numbers ain’t got nothing to do with them,” Parsons said about the edge rusher market. “Like, I’m younger than Hendrickson. I mean, Hutchinson’s coming off an injury. Everyone’s circumstances is completely different. Hutch is coming off his third year. Usually guys wait four years. So, it just all depends. Watt. I mean, he’s up there with Myles. So, you know, it’s different. Everyone’s circumstance is different.”
Parsons, 26, has 52.5 sacks in his career, earning All-Pro twice and making the Pro Bowl all four seasons. He had 12 sacks and 23 quarterback hits — both career lows — in 13 games last season.
The flaws in the NFL’s annual top 100 player list become evident through the outcome of the players-only vote.
We last mentioned “the list” when Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa landed at No. 91, despite missing six games and having middle-of-the-pack stats. Now, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has come in at No. 79.
Dak missed nine games in 2024. More than twenty five quarterbacks threw for more than his 1,978 passing yards. His passer rating was 86.0, with 11 touchdown passes against eight interceptions.
The problem is that the voting happens whenever it happens during the prior season. And they don’t tell us when it happens.
If a player was asked in September, for example, to list his top 20 players in the NFL (which is the standard ballot), Prescott would have been more likely to land on it. The later in the year, the less likely it would be for him to make a player’s top 20.
Regardless, of the first 22 players listed, only two are quarterbacks — Tua and Dak. How many more will make it?
Several are a given: Mahomes, Allen, Jackson, Burrow. Presumably, Goff, Mayfield, and Herbert will be there, too.
What about Jayden Daniels? Matthew Stafford? C.J. Stroud? Bo Nix? Brock Purdy? Jordan Love? Kyler Murray? Sam Darnold? Geno Smith?
Aaron Rodgers?
While not much at all is interesting about the top 100 list, it will be interesting to see how many quarterbacks make it. And which ones will be omitted, despite having better (if not much better) seasons than Tua Tagovailoa or Dak Prescott.
The Cowboys said farewell to All-Pro right guard Zack Martin when he retired this offseason and they hope they landed another long-term standout at the position in the first round of the draft.
Dallas used the 12th overall pick on Tyler Booker this year and he’s already occupying Martin’s former spot at the top of the depth chart. Booker played left guard at Alabama the last two seasons, so he has had to make some adjustments in his first months as an NFL player.
Booker said this week that those adjustments have been made easier by the fact that he spent his freshman year with the Crimson Tide playing both guard spots.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” Booker said, via Garrett Podell of CBSSports.com. “You have to think a little bit more, but at the same time, it’s technique that you’re a lot more cognizant of what you’re doing with your body. It’s not too hard because my freshman year at Bama, I would get two drives at left guard and two drives at right guard. Shout out to [former Alabama head coach Nick] Saban and [offensive line coach Eric] Wolford for getting me ready for the NFL.”
Booker joins an offensive line that the Cowboys have restocked in the last few years. If all goes according to plan, he will join 2022 first-rounder Tyler Smithand 2024 first-round pick Tyler Guyton as foundation pieces for years to come.
The headline? Long-time sports executive Tim Leiweke (older brother of former NFL COO Tod Leiweke) has been indicted on federal bid-rigging charges.
Something far more interesting, and potentially far more relevant to the NFL, lurks beneath the top-line news.
Tim Leiweke served, until Wednesday, as the CEO of Oak View Group. He resigned due to a problem arising from the construction of the Moody Center at the University of Texas.
OVG led the financing and oversaw the development of the arena. Along the way, OVG and Legends Hospitality — founded by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and the New York Yankees — allegedly committed antitrust violations by (wait for it) colluding. (Sixth Street Partners purchased a controlling interest in Legends four years ago; Jones still owns a piece of the company.)
Leiweke allegedly entered into an agreement with Legends to drop its bid to oversee the construction of the arena in exchange for “lucrative subcontracts.” Leweike then allegedly reneged on the subcontracts.
CNBC reports that Legends is expected to pay a $1.5 million penalty for its involvement in the alleged scheme. OVG is expected to pay $15 million. And Leiweke will face an eventual trial, barring a dismissal of the charges or a deal of his own.
Leiweke, in a statement issued to Sports Business Journal, says he did nothing wrong. He calls the arrangement with Legends a “vertical, complementary business partnership” that fully complies with the law.
The development comes at a time when the NFL Players Association has secured an arbitration finding that the NFL’s Management Council, with the blessing of Commissioner Roger Goodell, urged teams to collude regarding guaranteed contracts for NFL players. As a source familiar with the NFLPA’s operations told PFT after it became clear that the NFLPA had hidden the ruling for months, “a properly functioning union would alert the [Department of Justice’s] antitrust division” about the behavior — with the obvious goal of getting the DOJ to investigate whether and to what extent the NFL has engaged (and/or is engaging) in other antitrust violations.
Now that it’s come to light that the league tried to collude as to player guarantees, maybe an ambitious AUSA will take a closer look at whether supposedly competing businesses have been doing a little colluding (or a lot) in violation of the federal antitrust laws. The fact that the DOJ is currently run by a president who has vowed regarding NFL owners to “get them all back” won’t make that possibility any less likely.
