The Dallas Cowboys have a strong history of retaining their stars, but that does not mean their front office does it efficiently. In fact, it seems that GM Jerry Jones and his staff continue to make the same mistake over and over again.
Specifically, that mistake is waiting too long to negotiate with the best players on their roster. On one hand, it does allow the team to gather more information regarding the individual player's performance and market conditions. On the other, it allows other players at their respective positions to get new deals that drive up the price the franchise is ultimately forced to pay.
Micah Parsons will be the latest Cowboys star to cash in on his team's unwillingness to move with any sort of urgency. Dallas only recently began to engage his representatives in contract talks despite his obvious important to the team's defense. Now, the edge rushing market has been reset by the Browns and Myles Garrett.
The Bengals (Ja'Marr Chase) and Cowboys (Micah Parsons) are two teams that will be directly affected by the Myles Garrett deal—with the bar for non-QBs rising to $40 million per.
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 9, 2025
The longer you wait ...
Cowboys waiting game with Micah Parsons comes back to haunt them
There is no way Parsons and his representatives will consider signing a deal that comes in at less than the $40 million per season Garrett recently received. Parsons is four years younger than his Cleveland counterpart and is just as disruptive as a player. The next deal he signs will lock him up through the prime of his athletic career.
It's very possible Parsons will be looking to reset the edge rushing market for a second time in quick succession. His youth might empower him to ask for a contract that pays him somewhere in the neighborhood of $45 million per season. That ask might have seemed exorbitant before Garrett landed his monster deal with the Browns.
The Cowboys could have avoided all of this drama by being proactive. Parsons is their best defensive player by a wide margin. Subtract him from the team's depth chart and Dallas' defense certainly looks like one of the weakest units in the NFL. Parsons is not a player they can afford to lose.
The Garrett deal probably won't cause the Cowboys to lose out on locking down Parsons for the long haul but it will cost them millions of dollars in salary. That's a significant price to pay for a team that already has salary cap issues. At some point, Dallas needs to learn to lock their core players up before the last minute.