Micah Parsons fallout: Jerry Jones’ contract tactics with star players once again bite the Cowboys

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In recent years, when Dallas Cowboys ownership was trying to negotiate a contract extension with one of the team’s star players, an agent in the middle of the process reached a boiling point. Talks were at a difficult standstill, team owner Jerry Jones and son Stephen were renewing efforts to engage the player in a private meeting, and the agent had enough.

So they picked up a phone and delivered a message directly to the Joneses.

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“Stop trying to talk to my player without me.”

Inside the agent community, this has been a familiar story. For years, player representatives have complained behind the scenes about how the Cowboys continue to go about their business in high-stakes negotiations. In drawn out contact talks, the furor has often been a climbing scale, beginning with general annoyance, transitioning to heated or passive-aggressive exchanges. In the worst cases, it has resulted in breaking off talks for long periods of time.

Often, the familiar decay in negotiations shared an underlying theme inside the agent community, with representatives alleging that Jerry Jones had a history of attempting to manipulate players into discounted deals. First by isolating them in a face-to-face meeting without an agent present — sometimes under the guise of discussing something other than contract talks — then by pouring honey into their ear about being a lifelong member of the Cowboys, staying part of the Dallas family and sacrificing a little financially to win Super Bowl immortality together.

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Sometimes, it was an alleged sideswipe tactic that remained tucked behind a curtain of secrecy, with both sides choosing to keep any rising animus private. Other times, it seeped out in telltale moments that are likely still fresh in the minds of Cowboys fans. Moments like quarterback Dak Prescott repeatedly and publicly putting his agent, Todd France, front and center as the conduit who would complete his last two drawn-out — and sometimes prickly — contract extensions. Or the representatives of former running back Zeke Elliott not only holding him out of training camp in 2019, but moving him to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico so he could train and more easily remain out of direct communications with the Jones family. Those were two of the higher profile instances of star Cowboys players trying to keep their contract negations in the hands of their agents in an effort to realize their full value as players. But there have been others, too.

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What there hasn’t been up to this point, is a star player willing to step out and directly challenge the way Dallas and Jerry do business. That is, until Friday, when edge rusher Micah Parsons laid his lengthy concerns bare on social media, requesting a trade and stating that he no longer wanted to be a part of the Cowboys. Within it, there was one cutting line that has been a siren scream inside the player and agent ranks: “I no longer want to be held to close door negotiations without my agent present.” That line was a reference to a March meeting between Parsons and Jerry Jones that ultimately left the Cowboys owner feeling as if he had directly negotiated a new extension with his pass rusher. Parsons then went on to spell out some previously untold aspects of that meeting.

“In March I met with Mr. Jones to talk about leadership,” Parsons wrote on social media. “Somehow the conversation turned into him talking contract with me. Yes I engaged in a back and forth in regards to what I wanted from my contract, but at no point did I believe this was supposed to be a formal negotiation and I informed Mr. Jones afterward my agent would reach out thinking this would get things done. But when my agent reached out and spoke to [senior director of salary cap and player contracts Adam Prasifka] he was told the deal was pretty much already done. My agent of course told him that wasn’t the case and also reached out to Stephen Jones. Again the team decided to go silent.”

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Parsons said it was at that point he and his agent, David Mulugheta of Athletes First, made the decision to let the Cowboys reach out when they were ready to do a deal.

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According to Parsons, “Up to [Friday], the team has not had a single conversation with my agent about a contract.”

For Cowboys fans and the franchise in general, the post by Parsons is an earthquake of significant magnitude. It’s the first time a star player has been this expansive about a problem that agents and players have complained about for a while: A penchant to cut agents out of the process and try to cut deals directly with players using tactics or criteria that clearly are meant to create a negotiating advantage for the team.

This despite Parsons saying on more than once occasion that he wanted Mulugheta to play a role in negotiating his extension. In the past, Dallas has honored those requests in the midst of bank-breaking talks with the likes of Prescott, Elliott, CeeDee Lamb and others. For reasons that only the Jones family can speak to, it appears they are refusing to honor it with Parsons. It’s a reality that Jerry all but said directly in July, when he suggested that he had an agreement in place between himself and Parsons.

“I’m really not going to get into responding to what Micah said I said, or what [Micah] said he said, or what Mulugheta said, or what Stephen said,” Jerry insisted. “I’m not getting into any of that at all. We’re where we are. I sign the check. Period. … Micah, he’s confident in himself, he should be, he’s extraordinarily bright — I can’t emphasize that enough. He’s very capable of negotiating anything he wants to negotiate.”

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In the agent community, that smacks of a my-way-or-the-highway stance. And it’s how you get to the point of pushing negotiations off the table completely — only to be replaced with a trade demand. Right now, it appears that’s exactly what has transpired inside Dallas.

But rather than the end of this story being a record-breaking deal that heals all wounds — as has been the case in so many other acidic contract talks for Jerry Jones and Dallas — it appears the only thing broken is the resolve of Micah Parsons to remain a Cowboy.

This news was originally published on this post .