Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys haven’t exactly operated as a functioning contending franchise in recent years.
Last offseason, especially, was a brutal one for Jones and the Cowboys.
By waiting to sign Dak Prescott to an extension, the quarterback market had already set itself which likely drove the asking price up to where the Cowboys and their star settled at four years for $240 million. Likewise, it took a contract holdout for the Cowboys to sign playmaking wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.
There’s another major fork in the road for Jones and the Cowboys, and arguably the most important player on the roster looming in the coming weeks and months ahead.
Micah Parsons’ Extension Looms Large Over The Dallas Cowboys
It’s time for the Dallas Cowboys to make a decision about Micah Parsons’ future.
ESPN’s Dan Graziano suggests that how the Cowboys handle Parsons’ looming contract extension is the biggest question Dallas faces this offseasonn.
“Let’s be clear,” Graziano writes for ESPN. “The Cowboys absolutely have the ability to extend Parsons whenever they want. There’s no salary cap reason they can’t do this. Parsons is heading into his fifth-year option season, which means his salary and cap number for 2025 are both $24.007 million. An extension — which will likely come with a massive signing bonus and drop his 2025 salary to the veteran minimum — will actually create a ton of cap room for Dallas, which is going to have to restructure the Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb contracts for cap space whether they get a Parsons deal done or not.
“Parsons — who has at least a dozen sacks in each of his four seasons — might end up being the highest-paid defensive player in the league. But as you might have noticed from reading this, that can be said about two or three other players, too. So the Cowboys would be wise to do this deal as soon as possible. That’s just not the way they’ve managed these things in recent years.”
In addition to his dominance on the field, Parsons’ value to the Cowboys has rarely been more evident than amid the defense’s collapse last season after he was sidelined for four games due to high-ankle sprain.
The 6-foot-3 and 247-pound wrecking ball of an edge rusher has amassed 52.5 career sacks, including a 12-sack 2024 campaign in just 13 games, which shows just how disruptive Parsons is at this stage of his career.
Whether Jones and the Cowboys act aggressively to keep Parsons in the fold, before fracturing the relationship with the former first-round pick out of Penn State, or mismanage his situation similarly to Prescott’s and Lamb’s will be a major storyline to watch in Dallas this offseason.
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