The Dallas Cowboys and Micah Parsons have yet to come to a contract extension agreement.
For two reasons, that could prove quite costly.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio laid out the issues at hand in a recent article, and they come down to money and readiness.
“If they would have paid Parsons last year, it would have cost a lot less than $40 million per year,” Florio writes. “If they would have paid Parsons immediately after the end of the season, the deal likely would have been closer to $35 million than $45 million. Now, Browns defensive end Myles Garrett has set a new bar. Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt could push it higher before Parsons puts pen to paper.”
Pressure to get a deal done will also increase as the season approaches, and Parsons won’t be with the team in the meantime.
“The price will keep going up,” Florio writes. “And Parsons won’t be as ready for the regular season as he could have been. Especially if the foot dragging lasts into camp and Parsons holds out and the Cowboys eventually and inevitably cave as Week 1 approaches.”
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Florio believes that owner Jerry Jones is to blame.
“There are many reasons why the Cowboys have gone 30 years without an appearance in the NFC Championship,” Florio writes. “One very real reason is the chronic stubbornness of owner Jerry Jones to pay his core players sooner than later.”
Maybe the boldest claim Florio makes is that he believes Jones might just be doing this intentionally.
“Our guess? He knows it,” Florio writes. “And he’d rather have the latest unsettled contract become the top story for sports media than to see his team benefit from the relative irrelevance of peace.”
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None of that is particularly flattering.
The Cowboys almost certainly are going to give Parsons his record-setting contract eventually, as Florio writes. There definitely would be a lot less drama if the deal was signed sooner rather than later.
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