When it comes to paying linebacker Micah Parsons, the Cowboys keep dragging their feet. As they usually do with core players they plan to keep.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Maybe, when it comes to Micah, the Cowboys will eventually choose not to keep him.
With Browns defensive end Myles Garrett pushing the non-quarterback APY as high as $40 million per year (the actual details are TBD), Micah’s price will also climb. The question becomes whether it gets to a point where the Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones will punt on Parsons.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Last April, Shan Shariff of 105.3 the Fan in Dallas (you know, one of the guys Jerry threatened to fire even though Jerry doesn’t employ them) said Parsons has “worn thin” within the building. During the 2024 season, multiple Sunday Splash! reports from the TV network the NFL owns and operates (and over which Jerry has considerable influence) floated the notion that Parsons could be traded.
Why wouldn’t interested teams already be calling? Parsons will want more than Garrett. Parsons might want a lot more than Garrett. If there’s another team that will pay Parsons and give the Cowboys a boatload of picks, why not listen? Especially if Jerry doesn’t want to pay Parsons market value.
Last weekend’s uncharacteristic Scouting Combine silence from Jones prompted plenty of speculation regarding the reason(s) for it. Most centered on Micah.
Are the Cowboys considering trading him for the No. 1 overall pick? Are they trying to trade him for Garrett? (If so, too late.)
However it goes, a trade remains possible until Parsons puts his autograph on a new contract. And the longer the Cowboys wait, the more expensive it will get.
If Shariff’s information from last year is accurate, maybe they’ll decide to do a Herschel Walker-type trade for someone who will break the bank for Parsons and send significant draft capital to the Cowboys.
Four teams have traded Brandin Cooks, but the wide receiver has never been a free agent. There is a first time for everything.
Cooks, who has played 11 seasons, is scheduled to hit free agency for the first time next week.
“I’m expecting a good free agency since this is the first time that I would be a free agent in my career, but I’m also open to returning to Dallas,” Cooks told Josina Anderson of The Exhibit. “At the end of the day I’m just trying to win.”
Cooks missed seven games with a knee infection after arthroscopic surgery last season. He had career lows with 26 receptions for 259 yards, and he scored three touchdowns.
“I am fully healthy and have nothing to hide,” Cooks told Anderson. “If a quarterback wants to go throw somewhere, I could get on a plane and catch for him right now.”
Cooks has had six 1,000-yard seasons but none since 2021. In two seasons in Dallas, he had 80 receptions for 916 yards and 11 touchdowns.
He is open to a return to Dallas, but there are no signs the Cowboys are interested in his return.
“I have a good relationship with Dak [Prescott], the Jones family and Cee Dee [Lamb],” Cooks said. “It’s just one of those things where they have to focus on what they have to get done first, too. I would love to play with the Cowboys, at the same time they would have to use me right. I don’t think they fully used me to my strengths.”
Former Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup is ending his retirement, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports.
Gallup, who retired last offseason, was released from the Raiders’ reserve/retired list Friday for that reason.
Gallup, 29, signed a one-year contract worth up to $3 million with the Raiders last April. He was expected to compete for the team’s No. 3 receiver job.
But after participating in the Raiders’ organized team activities and minicamp, Gallup abruptly called it quits.
He had 266 receptions for 3,744 yards and 21 touchdowns in six seasons with the Cowboys, who released him March 15, 2024, in a cost-cutting move.
Gallup tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee late in the 2021 season, but the Cowboys still signed him to a five-year, $57.5 million deal before the 2022 season. He could not get back to where he was before the injury, though, catching 73 passes for 842 yards and six touchdowns in 31 games in 2022-23.
At a time when the Cowboys routinely dig in their spurs when it comes to re-signing their core players, the Raiders have shown them how it’s done.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the new contract for star pass rusher Maxx Crosby came together very quickly, literally in a few hours.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, spend far more time making excuses regarding their failure to find a way to turn words into action.
“We get criticized because we wait until the end or what you would call the end, and that is lining up for the first game,” owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday. “It just happens that way. I’ve been one of the earliest out there on several contracts in my 35 years.”
It’s easy to make bold, broad claims when stubborn things like facts aren’t included in the discussion. The reality is that, in recent years, the Cowboys have waited way too long with too many players they were going to sign anyway. From Ezekiel Elliott in 2019 to Dak Prescott in 2021 to CeeDee Lamb in 2024 to Dak Prescott (again) in 2024, the Cowboys routinely choose intransigence.
The same thing could be coming for linebacker Micah Parsons. The smart move would be to do now that which they’ll inevitably do later. It’ll create more cap space, and it’ll only become more expensive as other deals come in.
Already, Crosby has set a new bar for non-quarterbacks, at $35.5 million per year in new money. Other players, especially edge rushers, could push it even higher. Whenever the Cowboys get around to hammering out the details for Micah’s next deal, the price could be a lot higher than it would be today.
If they wanted to do it today, they could. He’s due to make $24 million this year, fully guaranteed. A five-year, $168 million contract would create a new-money average of $36 million, at an actual payout of $33.6 million annually.
Give Micah $40 million to sign. Add a $1.17 million base salary for 2025. For 2026, give him a fully-guaranteed $35 million salary with the right to convert it to a signing bonus. The 2027 salary would be $33 million, guaranteed for injury and fully guaranteed in March 2026. That’s a $109.17 million practical guarantee.
Throw in a pair of $29.415 million non-guaranteed base salaries on the back end, and that’s it.
Three hours? It could take three minutes. The Cowboys nevertheless seem content to let it take six months.
The Cowboys completed a contract with defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa on Tuesday, signing him to a four-year deal worth up to $80 million with $52 million guaranteed. His cap number is $6.25 million for 2025.
Next up is All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons.
Parsons is under contract for the fifth-year option of $22.06 million but unlikely to show up until he gets a contract extension.
The Cowboys did not get extensions completed with receiver CeeDee Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott until just before the start of the 2024 season. Lamb missed all of the offseason program, all of training camp and all of the preseason before signing.
“We get criticized because we wait until the end or what you would call the end, and that is lining up for the first game,” owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday, via Todd Archer of ESPN. “It just happens that way. I’ve been one of the earliest out there on several contracts in my 35 years.”
Executive vice president Stephen Jones said preliminary contract talks have started with Parsons.
Parsons is expected to top the three-year, $106.5 million contract extension signed by Las Vegas edge rusher Maxx Crosby on Wednesday. The deal made Crosby the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history, something Parsons said late last season he doesn’t need, but he is likely to get.
While Jerry Jones said there is no urgency to complete a deal for Parsons, Stephen Jones hopes for sooner than later.
“That’s always [the goal],” Stephen Jones said, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “The goal was to do CeeDee [done] early. That’s always the goal, to get it done when you can get it.”
