Cowboys can't afford to let Micah Parsons' contract dispute linger into the season

Jerry Jones is known for dragging contract negotiations so it’s no surprise Micah Parsons is just the latest Dallas Cowboys star player to have to wait on a new deal.

Dak Prescott had to play on the franchise tag in 2020 after being unable to reach agreement on an extension, and he didn’t get another new deal last season until hours before the Week 1 opener. Jones eventually caved and made Prescott the highest-paid player in NFL history with an average of $60 million per year.

CeeDee Lamb held out into late August last year following an All-Pro season before Jones gave him a four-year, $136 million deal.

All-Pro guard Zack Martin held out of training camp in 2023 while waiting for a new contract.

This is nothing new for Jones.

Back when the Cowboys were America’s Team, even Emmitt Smith couldn’t get paid quickly. The Hall of Fame running back missed the first two games of the 1993 season because of a contract dispute. He eventually signed a $13.6 million deal — most for a running back at the time — after the Cowboys started 0-2 without him but they still ended up winning the Super Bowl.

Jones mentioned that when training camp started. That’s not a good sign that Parsons will get what he wants sooner than later.

Jones operates on his own time and there’s plenty of ego involved. He’s been a unique owner since he bought the Cowboys in 1989 and named himself general manager. Hiring Jimmy Johnson to replace Tom Landry was Jones’ best decision. Both men are in the Hall of Fame for it and the Cowboys won three Super Bowls under Jones.

But they haven’t reached an NFC championship game in 30 years and they won’t get through a tough NFC East without Parsons, the two-time All-Pro edge rusher and generational talent.

The Philadelphia Eagles are defending Super Bowl champions. The Washington Commanders faced the Eagles in the conference title game. Dallas has a big challenge trying to compete in the division and they’ll need Parsons to have a chance.

Jones hasn’t even talked to his agent, David Mulugheta. Jones has said he had direct conversations with Parsons in the spring over a contract extension that would almost certainly make him the highest-paid defender in NFL history.

By waiting for Myles Garrett (4 years, $160 million) and T.J. Watt (3 years, $123 million) to sign new contracts, Parsons is in line to make more than $41 million per year. The Cowboys waited to sign Prescott and were forced to give him more money than any other player because he was the next quarterback in line.

Jones’ patience has a negative impact on his checkbook.

Parsons, who is a hold-in at camp, requested a trade last week. Jones blew it off.

“We have no intentions of trading Micah, and that’s part of the negotiations,” Cowboys co-owner Stephen Jones told the team’s website. “That’s just the nature of negotiations. I think any player that’s holding out for a contract – I think I’ve read around the league where they’ve all requested to be traded. So that’s part of it. We have no intention of trading Micah. He’s right here in camp.”

Business is business but there seems like there’s some tension in this relationship that won’t be erased until Jones and the Cowboys give in.

Jerry Jones isn’t certain Parsons will play in Week 1 against the Eagles.

“A big part of that is his decision. How would I know that?” he said.

Parsons is scheduled to make $24 million in the final season of his five-year rookie contract and could be franchise tagged in 2026 without an extension.

Prescott is confident a deal will get done because he’s been through it.

“I can say from experience that it’s just frustrating,” Prescott said. “I hate that he’s going through it, but as I’ve told him, keep handling things the way that you are, and I believe that he should be paid.”

Longtime NFL super-agent Leigh Steinberg, who represents the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, also expressed confidence that Parsons will get his new deal.

“Despite the current friction and heightened public spotlight surrounding the Cowboys-Parsons contract deadlock, this situation will ultimately be resolved,” Steinberg told the AP. “Micah Parsons is simply too valuable to the franchise - a generational talent who’s irreplaceable on the field and central to the team’s identity. The Cowboys, for all the noise, are ultimately pragmatic when it comes to retaining cornerstone players. In the end, I expect a deal to get done and for Parsons to enjoy a long, successful career in Dallas.”

It’s just a matter of when and whether Parsons misses any games, which the Cowboys can’t afford if they want to be championship contenders.

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Jerry Jones, right, Dallas Cowboys owner, president, and general manager gestures as he stands with Oxnard mayor Luis A. McArthur during opening ceremonies for training camp Saturday, July 26, 2025, in Oxnard, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Dallas Cowboys defensive end Micah Parsons, left, talks with wide receiver CeeDee Lamb during training camp Thursday, July 31, 2025, in Oxnard, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.

The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.

The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.

Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:

Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”

By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.

Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”

She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.

“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.

Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.

“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.

“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.

Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”

Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.

“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”

She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.

“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”

Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”

She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”

In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.

When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:

“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”

“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”

Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.

FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)