Micah Parsons timeline: As Cowboys star requests trade, here’s how contract talks with Jerry Jones broke down

The contract talks between the Dallas Cowboys and All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons have gone nuclear. Parsons demanded a trade Friday after feeling like Dallas isn’t taking his contract negotiations seriously.

Recently Parsons revealed on that David Mulugheta, his agent, has reached out the Cowboys front office to hammer out particulars for his new contract, but that Dallas hasn’t connected with Mulugheta just yet. That’s why the 26-year-old became fed up with exchanging jabs with owner and general manager Jerry Jones through the media. Stalling major contracts for star players is an annual Cowboys tradition, but Parsons is done playing the game. Both quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb went through similar prolonged talks before both re-signing with the Cowboys at the tail end of last offseason. Parsons is set to enter the final year of his rookie contract in 2025. 

In an effort to remain up to date with how Parsons’ contract negotiations have, or rather haven’t, developed this offseason, here’s a timeline of what Parsons, Jones, Prescott and Lamb have said about the edge rusher’s contract talks across the last eight months.

January

• Jan. 5 (Jerry Jones after season finale): “I’ll talk to Micah. I’ll talk to him about it. As a matter of fact, I think he’s called, and I think he’s sitting with me at the Cotton Bowl. That’s probably where we’ll do some talking.”        
• Jan. 6 (Micah Parsons previewing Cotton Bowl meeting) — “It’s all going to start just at the roots of like obviously, ‘Where do you see us going? How can we become contenders? How do we bounce back from this year? What are the plans?’ Those are the types of things that I would ask, and I hope he asks me things, too.”  
• Jan. 14 (Parsons) — “Losing a great coach like Mike [McCarthy] hurts, but it’s going to be a very interesting offseason. It’s going to be very interesting. Due to free agents, coaching, it’s going to be a complete reset. It’s going to be a very interesting and challenging offseason, but listen I already know I trust my owner. I trust my GM. I trust (vice president of player personnel) Will McClay. I trust that we’re gonna make the right decisions.”  

February

• Feb. 6 (Micah Parsons on if he’d take pay cut for Cowboys to trade for Myles Garrett) — “Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Will he take less too?… We would definitely have to make that happen. … As long as he [Jerry Jones] let me be a little higher [paid] than him [Garrett]. … I’m younger. … He [Garrett] want to be with us too. … I do alright [off the field as a Cowboy]. I do [want to win].”  
• Feb. 7 (Jerry Jones) — “Well, we spent the most money of anybody in the NFL on a player last year. If we can do that again, that’d be pretty good. I think you ought to look at free agency, not so much the criticism we got last year, but look at in years past and how we’ve done it will probably be more in line.”  
• Feb. 11 (CeeDee Lamb reacting to report of Cowboys considering trading Parsons) — “Y’all aren’t tired of this? Every offseason, top of the charts… Let’s just win ball games and that’s with 11! SMH.”  
• Feb. 13 (Parsons)  — “There’s been no progress. But I’m pretty confident something will happen. We’ll see. … I really have a lot of respect for Jerry. We have great conversations all the time. There’s definitely a plan in place to see how everything plays out.”  

April

• April 1 (Jones at NFL’s annual league meeting) — “I know that I’ve spent five, six hours with [Parsons] myself and had a lot of discussions. Most of the issues are in agreement, and I’ve discussed it all. We obviously don’t have an agreement relative to a new contract. Micah is under contract. So we’ll see how that goes. It’s not uncommon for me to visit directly with players, and in this particular case, that’s what I’m doing.”
• April 1 (Jones) — [An agent’s] not something you should be worrying about. You should be worrying about your ability to make it work, and you should be worried about what the player does. Does he have good enough health? Does he have good enough skill to do what you’re paying him the money for. The agent is not a factor here, of something to worry about. And I don’t know his name. And so my point is, I’m not trying to demean him in any way, but this isn’t about an agent. The agent doesn’t have one thing to do with what we’re doing when we get on the football field against a team. Micah does. To the degree I’m involved, I do. The people that have something to do with what we do going forward relative to our fans and football are me and the player, not the agent. Frankly, most people that negotiate with me will tell you that it was better off than negotiating with anybody else, Stephen [Jones], or anybody involved. This is not uncommon. I negotiated directly as far back as Emmitt [Smith], Deion [Sanders]. We, by the way, have maintained relationships that have lasted well past their playing days.”      
• April 1 (Parsons talking about his agent) — “David is the best and I will not be doing any deal without @DavidMulugheta involved! Like anyone with good sense I hired experts for a reason. There is no one I trust more when it comes to negotiating contracts than David! There will be no backdoors in this contract negotiation.”
• April 22 (Jones) — “I know about the years, and I know about the guarantees. I know about those kinds of things, and really it’s close enough to … work on a number. I mean, I’m comfortable with it. I don’t need to adjust.”  
• April 22 (Stephen Jones) — “You look around the league at most of these players who are getting these very top contracts, it does take time ultimately to get there, and believe me, if we could sign Micah to a number we wanted to sign him to, we do it right now. But right now, there’s a difference in what we feel is the right number, and what he feels like is the right number.”  
• April 23 (Parsons) — “It’s challenging because you don’t need to be there [at a $40 million average per year salary] right? If this market is set at $35 [million], then it kind of backfires because you see Maxx [Crosby] goes to $35.5, $36 [million]. Then you see guys that are older than you, and you can say your production and versatility matches what they’re doing, and you say ‘Why?’ … I would say I’m more in my prime than a lot of these other guys who are more in the second half of their career. That’s the challenging part man, just getting fully [honest] about ‘What’s your worth?’ I don’t really think it’s about the dollar. I think it’s all about how much someone thinks you’re worth.”
• April 23 (Parsons about getting a deal done before training camp) — “It’s extremely important. You really see a lot of players struggle, guys aren’t participating in camp and get off to slow starts. I don’t want to get off to no slow starts. I want to hit the ground running and establish ourselves in this league and get some wins early in the season and be in rhythm. It’s going to be extremely important to get going and lead these guys.”      
• April 23 (Parsons) — “Obviously, I know Jerry always comes from a good place, and I think overall Jerry is one of the better people I know and also my agent is one of the better people I know. It’s like when your brother and sister are arguing, you don’t really step in and choose sides. You just kind of say, ‘Hey, they’re coming from this perspective. You’re coming from this perspective. Just find a way to meet in the middle, no hard feelings at all.”   

June

• June 10 (Parsons on getting a deal done before camp) — “I’m pretty hopeful. I’m still hanging tight. I understand it’s up to [Jerry Jones]. He gives the green light on everything. So hopefully something is done by next month.”  
• June 12 (Dak Prescott on Parsons’ contract situation) — “Yeah, and that’s not to knock any of those other guys. Those situations are all independent and different. I’m sure Micah feels the same way. Don’t compare him to Trey [Hendrickson] or whoever else it is. We’re all very confident that Micah’s going to get this deal done. It starts with Micah and Jerry and I think they’ve both alluded to that. Obviously it’s a situation and position that I’ve been in a couple times. He understands the wait and just doing everything in between there the right way.”    

Micah Parsons is becoming wildly expensive, and Jerry Jones and the Cowboys only have themselves to blame

Garrett Podell

July

• July 21 (Jones about Parsons) — “Just because we sign him, doesn’t mean we’re going to have him. He was hurt [four, not six] games last year. Seriously. I remember signing a player for the highest paid at the position in the league and he got knocked out two-thirds of the year, Dak Prescott. So there’s a lot of things you can think about just as the player does when you’re thinking about committing and guaranteeing money.”  
• July 22 (Parsons after the first camp practice) — “My agent has been reaching out. At one point, one grown man has to be reaching out himself. Communication works both ways. They reached out, so that needs to happen, too. They got to want to do it on their part.”  
• July 22 (Parsons) — “If they don’t want me here, they don’t want me here. I’ll go about my business. I understand the nature of the business. As far as I’m here and under contract, I’m going to do what I have to do to perform at the highest level, but if this is the end, this is the end. Same with the Joneses. Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones and the other Jerry Jones [Jerry Jr.] take care of their family, the same way I need to take care of my family. I got three kids of my own, so we all need to take care of our own family at the end of the day.”   
• July 22 (Parsons): “I wouldn’t say it’s hard to not take it personally when there’s a chain of events of something consistent happening over the course of years where you kind of see it before through other players and things, you don’t take that personal. It’s not like I’m getting treated differently than anyone else. I don’t take it personally. I just don’t understand it.” 
• July 27 (Stephen Jones): “We want to pay Micah too. He has to want to be paid.”

August

• August 1 (Parsons demands a trade): “Yes I wanted to be here. I did everything I could to show that I wanted to be a Cowboys and wear the star on my helmet. I wanted to play in front of the best fans in sports in make this America’s team again. The team my pops and I grew up cheering for way up in Harrisburg, PA. Unfortunately, I no longer want to be here. I no longer want to be held to closed door negotiations without my agent present. I no longer want shots taken at me for getting injured while laying it on the line for the organization, our fans and my teammates. I no longer want narratives created and spread to the media about me.

  “I had purposely stayed quiet in hopes of getting something done. But since there is confusion out there let me clear some things up. I had my agent reach out to the Cowboys last offseason after my third year in hopes of getting a deal done early. Unfortunately, the team did not want to start any negotiations at that point. I was OK with that, didn’t complain and focused on the 2024 season. After the season, I told my agent once again to let the team know we were open to negotiate when they met at the combine. My agent informed me I should wait for other deals to get done because the price would only go up, but I didn’t care and wanted to secure myself as a Cowboys long term. This was before any of the other pass rushers’ deals this offseason. I knew I would be leaving money on the table, but again, I was OK with that. Again, radio silence as far as my extension.

  “In March, I met with Mr. Jones to talk about leadership. 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. 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 [director of salary cap/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.

  “At that point, we decided we would allow the team to reach out to us whenever they decided they wanted to talk. Yet, still not a call, email or text to my agent about starting a negotiation. Up to today, the team has not had a single conversation with my agent about my contract. Not one demand has been made by my agent about money, years or anything else. Still, I stayed quiet, but again after repeated shots at myself and all the narratives, I have made a tough decision. I no longer want to play for the Dallas Cowboys. My trade request has been submitted to Stephen Jones personally.”

• August 1 (CeeDee Lamb asks the Cowboys to cut the drama and re-sign Parsons): “Never fails dawg. Just pay the man what you owe ’em. No need for the extra curricular.”