ARLINGTON, Texas — Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons couldn’t have ended his fourth season with much more of a bang ahead of his long-term contract negotiations with owner and general general manager Jerry Jones.
The three-time All-Pro sacked Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels twice in the first three plays from scrimmage in Week 18, a narrow 23-19 defeat that ran the team’s record to 7-10. Parsons finished the game with three tackles, 2.5 sacks and four quarterback pressures.
“One hundred percent,” Parsons said postgame when asked if that’s the best start to a game that he’s ever had. “I got out there early. I understand that I had to go out there and be dominant early on. Don’t wait for it because I understand that the offense might be a little slower with with the QB change [from Cooper Rush to Trey Lance]. … So we just tried to be aggressive as possible early on.”
Rare air
That effort also made Parsons just the fourth player since 1982 — when individual sacks officially began being tracked — with double-digit sacks in each of his first four NFL seasons played. He joined three Pro Football Hall of Famers — Reggie White (1985-1988), Derrick Thomas (1989-1992) and Dwight Freeney (2002-2005) — with this pass-rush accolade through four seasons in the books.
“Yes, I told you I was going to get that. I don’t think it was ever in question,” Parsons said of getting 10 sacks. “Yeah, right away. I wasn’t going to play with it.”
Parsons missed four games because of a high ankle sprain he suffered in Week 4 at the New York Giants on “Thursday Night Football.” That’s an absence that would put a massive dent in most players’ season totals, but at the end of the day, it didn’t impact Parsons all that much because of the tear he went on when he returned in Week 10. His 11.0 sacks and 49 quarterback pressures from Week 10 through the end of the regular season are both the most in the entire NFL. The 12.0 sacks he amassed for the year were tied for the fifth-most in the entire league and just two behind reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett’s 14.0 and five behind 2024 league leader Trey Hendrickson and his 17.5. Both Garrett and Hendrickson played all 17 games. Parsons’ 0.92 sacks per game rank as the second-most in the entire league behind only Hendrickson’s 1.03.
“If you gonna want me, I’m the best in the business,” Parsons said when talking about where he stands among the league’s elite. “After that I saw a bunch of triple teams so I was like, ‘We’re back to regular programming.’ That’s part of the game. I think honestly, man, I get [Cleveland’s] Myles Garrett is a freak of nature. We’re different freaks in our own way. I can’t say there’s three or four people better than me in this league. I miss four games and I put up the same numbers, as some of these guys who play all year.”
Garrett is on a five-year, $125 million deal, and the top of the edge rusher market is San Francisco 49ers edge rusher Nick Bosa, the 2022 NFL Defensive Player of the Year. He signed a five-year, $170 million contract that has the highest total contract value and average per year salary ($34 million) at the position.
“I think Micah Parsons makes a difference,” Jones said postgame on Sunday. “I think Micah Parsons’ talent makes a difference, and it made a difference out here. I’ll take that in real consideration. The fact that he was here, and then he wasn’t here. Then, I’ll take a look at how I feel we got behind the eight ball when he wasn’t here. I’ll take into consideration a lot about our entire situation.”
Time to get down to business
Parsons saw Cowboys All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb hold out from Cowboys training camp and not receive his four-year, $136 million extension until the end of August, and Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott not receive his four-year, $240 million extension until hours before kickoff of their Week 1 game at the Cleveland Browns. That’s not what he’s looking for when it comes to the timing of his mega deal.
He reiterated his sentiment from a few weeks back that he wants to get his deal done before free agency to help open up cap space for the team to address other areas. Dallas has 22 unrestricted free agents a year after Jones spent an NFL-low $19.3 million in free agency since the last Super Bowl, per OverTheCap.com, leaning almost entirely on the draft to supplement their roster after losing eight players in free agency, tied for the third-most in a single offseason in team history. He hopes to definitely have his deal done before the team heads to Oxnard, California, for training camp in late July.
“Yeah for sure because I don’t want to hold nobody up,” Parsons said. “I want to see some of these guys back in the locker room. We have a great opportunity. I want to see change. I want to see players here. I want to be as aggressive as we can be. I don’t want to be a headache to nobody. I want to be as aggressive as possible. … There is where I want to be.”
As of right now, Jones doesn’t see urgency to rush into signing Parsons right away before free agency because he’s hyper-focused on feeling like the financials of the fit well.
“Everybody puts a lot of [emphasis on] when it’s done,” Jones said. “What I will tell you is that it absolutely had nothing to do with signing Dak when he signed him, when we signed Lamb. It had nothing to do one way or the other. … My point is, no it does not. What I really would hang your hat on is how much we paid him and what he needs to be and what he is.”
He point-blank admitted he doesn’t see the reason for the pre-free agency desire to get Parsons’ deal done despite it being pointed out that it could help him fill out the rest of his roster.
“Not really, not necessarily at all,” Jones said when asked if getting Parsons done early could help improve the roster in free agency in March. “It’s got to have a more direct aspect of it.”
Fortunately, the All-Pro edge rusher enjoys a challenge, which is why he’s already set aside time for he and Jones to chat as early as Friday at the College Football Playoff Semifinal that is hosted at AT&T Stadium between Texas and Ohio State.
“I’ll talk to Micah. I’ll talk to him about it,” Jones said. “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.”
