PALM BEACH, Fla. — Negotiations between the Dallas Cowboys and All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons are in the early stages, but executive vice president Stephen Jones said he feels “good” about the direction of the talks.
Parsons, who is set to play this season on the fifth-year option of his rookie deal, has had conversations with owner and general manager Jerry Jones as well as Stephen Jones within the past couple of weeks. At the NFL scouting combine in February, the Cowboys met with Parsons’ agent, David Mulugheta.
“I don’t want to get into any details,” Stephen Jones said from The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday before the annual league meeting starts Monday. “It’s not fair for anybody, other than we’ve got a great working relationship with Micah and think the world of him. Like I’ve said, we’ve had good visits with him and feel good about where we’re headed.”
Since the combine, the Las Vegas Raiders signed pass rusher Maxx Crosby to a three-year, $106.5 million extension that includes $91.5 million guaranteed. The Cleveland Browns briefly made Myles Garrett the highest-paid non-quarterback with an extension that averages $40 million and includes $123.5 million guaranteed before the Cincinnati Bengals signed wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase to a four-year, $161 million deal that includes $112 million guaranteed.
Parsons can make a case to be the highest-paid non-quarterback. Parsons and Hall of Famer Reggie White are the only players to record at least 12 sacks in each of their first four seasons. Despite missing four games with a high ankle sprain last season, Parsons finished fifth in the NFL with 12 sacks. He tied for the most multisack games in the NFL last year with five, and his 18 multisack games in his career are the second most since 2021, behind only T.J. Watt, who has recorded 19 for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
A first-round pick in 2021, Parsons has recorded 52.5 sacks in his first four seasons. Only White (70), Derrick Thomas (58), J.J. Watt (57) and DeMarcus Ware (53.5) have had more since sacks became an official stat in 1982.
Parsons said late last season that he does not need to be the highest-paid defensive player in the game, but that was before the recent deals increased the market.
Last year, the Cowboys made Dak Prescott the highest-paid quarterback with a four-year, $240 million deal and made CeeDee Lamb the then-second-highest paid receiver at $34 million per season. Lamb did not sign his deal until August, missing all of the offseason program and most of training camp. Part of the reason was the Cowboys wanting to see the results of other talks, namely with Minnesota Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson, who signed a deal averaging $35 million.
Stephen Jones declined to discuss whether the Crosby and Garrett deals set a market for Parsons.
“Like I said, I’m not going to get into any detail on where things are, and how far along we are or anything like that,” Jones said. “It’s not productive.”
Jones did try to squash talk that the Cowboys wait too long to get deals done with their star players, which ends up costing them more money in the long run.
“We’ve done the early before, and we’ve waited until the end to do them,” Jones said. “A lot of it is just the negotiation itself. Some of them take longer than others. And we put about zero credibility or credence into people saying you wait too long.”
