Waiting on the Micah Parsons deal could lead to another protracted wait

Amidst the flurry of news across the NFL landscape in March, including free agency, trades and extensions that saw the market reset higher for players at nearly every position thanks to the continually rising the salary cap, the Dallas Cowboys have been largely quiet.

This in spite of the fact that two-time first-team All-Pro, four-time Pro Bowl defensive end Micah Parsons remains unsigned past the 2025 season. Extension-eligible since the end of the 2023 regular season came to a conclusion almost fifteen months ago, the Dallas front office has once again waited so long to reach an extension with a key player that the cost of the extension will cost the Cowboys tens of millions of dollars in additional cap space.

It was early March when Maxx Crosby reset the market for defensive ends, becoming the highest paid non-quarterback in league history with a three-year, $106.5 million deal with the Las Vegas Raiders. Then Danielle Hunter and the Houston Texans came to agreement on a one-year extension at a slightly higher $36.5 million, before Myles Garrett and the Cleveland Browns blew the top off the non-quarterback market with a four-year, $160 million extension.

Not to be left out, the Cincinnati Bengals then threw their hat in the ring, signing Ja’Marr Chase to a four-year, $161 million contract that set yet another new high for the non-quarterback market, and giving further support to $40 million per year being the new baseline for top players at the highest-paid positions.

For Cowboys fans, this is all too familiar. The team cost itself cap space waiting to extend DeMarcus Lawrence. Then they cost themselves cap space waiting to extend Amari Cooper after having traded a first-round pick to acquire him. Then they handled extension negotiations similarly with Dak Prescott in 2021. The did it with CeeDee Lamb in 2024. And they did it with Prescott again in 2024, as well.

Meaning that now, with soon-to-be 26-year old Micah Parsons and the front office in negotiations on a long-term extension, it’s happening again. Had they extended Parsons prior to the explosive growth at the top of the market, the price tag perhaps could have come in somewhere in the neighborhood of the Crosby or Hunter extensions, just slightly higher than the $34 million per year extension Nick Bosa signed with the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.

Now, though, with the top of the market for the position reset by Garrett at the $40 million per year mark, the reality of the situation is that reports of Parsons looking for a five-year, $200 million contract are not unrealistic.

The question then becomes whether those are contracts that the Cowboys would look to sign. Sure, both sides would like to have Parsons on the team and wreaking havoc on opposing offenses for years to come, but with multiple contract experts and observers now projecting a deal north of $40 million per year, it’s not inconceivable that the Dallas front office could wait even longer.

The fact that an extension could become that pricey for the team could lead to the contract talk in the media dragging out for years. Sure, the Cowboys don’t want the circus that would inevitably surround extended negotiations, but in the short term a 2026 franchise tag at $28.8 million might could carry more allure than a $200 million extension, and it wouldn’t be the first time Dallas has let things drag out while a member of the roster played the season on a franchise tag.

In short, the Dallas front office has once again put themselves in a position where they have cost the team cap space by waiting to ink Parsons to an extension, but with the ability to tag Parsons if the two sides can’t come to an agreement between now and the start of the season, it’s a situation that could be talked about for a long time.