Jerry Jones has done it again! Back in the 1990s, a sentence like that would have been followed by positive news for the franchise. These days, it typically means Jerry has needlessly overcomplicated what should have been a straightforward contract negotiation with one of his team’s best players. In this case, it’s the team’s best player, edge rusher Micah Parsons, who has grown so tired of Jerry’s bullshit that he officially put in his request to be traded out of Dallas and dropped a 1,000-word Notes app diatribe explaining his frustration with how things have played out.
There’s a lot to unpack there, including Parsons’s claim that Jones and the team have avoided calls with Parsons’s high-profile agent, David Mulugheta, and tried to conduct “close door negotiations” without him. While you’d think that would be a pretty blatant violation of the league’s collective bargaining agreement and basic business practices, it’s widely known that Jones prefers to negotiate with players directly—and he straight up admitted to taking that approach with Parsons back in April. “In this particular case, it’s what I’m doing,” Jones said. “And frankly most people that negotiate with me will tell me that that was better.”
At this point, we can safely say that Parsons does not believe it’s better this way and would like his agent (whose clientele includes highly paid players like Deshaun Watson, Jordan Love, Jalen Ramsey, and Budda Baker) to be involved in contract talks. Circumventing a player’s agent may have worked for Jones back in the 1990s—he got pretty sweet, team-friendly deals after tense negotiations with Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith back in the day—but that no longer seems to be the case. Dak Prescott and his agent have taken the Cowboys to the cleaners in both of the quarterback’s high-profile contract negotiations. After receiver CeeDee Lamb’s prolonged contract negotiations got ugly last summer, he wound up with the largest signing bonus a receiver has ever earned. And in 2019, running back Ezekiel Elliott coaxed a record-breaking deal out of the Cowboys that included plenty of guarantees.
The players always get their big-money extensions, as Lamb pointed out after Parsons made his trade request public.
And yet, Jones can’t help himself. He loves the extracurriculars and all of the attention that contract drama brings to Dallas. He also knows that there’s an easy way to clean up the messes he makes. “I’ve never seen anybody get their feelings hurt enough that the money couldn’t cure,” he said last year during Prescott’s contract dispute. Jones is probably justified in feeling that way. Even if he has to tack a few extra million dollars onto a deal, the unhappy players always stick around. Lamb ended tense negotiations by signing his new deal in the middle of the preseason. Elliott got his money just five days before the season opener in 2019. And Prescott agreed to his extension shortly before the Cowboys played their first game of last season.
Those contract talks never got to the point of a formal trade request, and none of those players aired the behind-the-scenes details of Jones’s negotiating style like Parsons just did. Still, the most likely (and most boring) conclusion to this saga is Parsons signing a record-shattering deal that keeps him in Dallas.
Still, we can dream.
Maybe this is the time when Jerry’s shenanigans finally backfire and cost him one of his coveted stars. Let’s imagine a world where Parsons is actually done in Dallas and manages to force his way out via trade. What would such a deal even look like, and which teams would (or should) be willing to pay the price? We’ve asked Diante Lee and Steven Ruiz to imagine such a scenario and come up with three dream trades each, some more realistic than others, for the Cowboys star.
Chargers
Cowboys get: Tuli Tuipulotu, a first-round pick (2026), and two second-round picks (2026, 2027)
Chargers get: Parsons and a fourth-round pick (2026)
The Chargers have the requisite draft capital and cap flexibility to put together a compelling trade package. Jim Harbaugh’s team certainly could use some more talent on defense, despite some impressive results on that side of the ball last season. The Chargers led the league in points allowed and finished in the top 10 in most defensive efficiency metrics, but the defense did not play like a top-end unit against the better quarterbacks on the team’s schedule. In the games against the quarterbacks who routinely show up in the top half of the rankings—Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Kyler Murray, and Baker Mayfield—the Chargers allowed 0.20 expected points added per quarterback dropback, and the number ballooned to 0.34 EPA allowed in obvious passing situations, per TruMedia. Los Angeles has to get better against good quarterbacks.
So how would Parsons help? Well, he’s really freaking good at putting pressure on the quarterback. The Chargers defense generated plenty of pressure last season, but it was overly reliant on five-man rushes to do so. When defensive coordinator Jesse Minter called for a standard four-man rush—typically paired with a soft zone coverage behind it—the results weren’t nearly as good. L.A.’s defense ranked second in the NFL in EPA allowed on five-man rushes but dropped to the bottom half of the league when sending only four.
Chargers Defense With Four Rushers vs. Five, 2024 Season (TruMedia)
The Chargers’ pressure and sack rates nearly doubled when sending an extra guy after the quarterback. Against those better quarterbacks, Minter was more hesitant to dial up pressures, which was probably the right approach. If you leave holes in your secondary against guys like Mahomes, Jackson, and Burrow, those quarterbacks will probably find them. Bringing in a game wrecker like Parsons would give Minter the ability to generate a productive pass rush while still having enough bodies in coverage to blanket the field. Parsons would also give those five-man rushes a nice boost, obviously.
From the Cowboys’ perspective, losing Parsons would lower the ceiling for the 2025 season, and considerably so, but Dallas would be adding a cheap, ascending pass rusher in the almost 23-year-old Tuipulotu—who’s coming off an 8.5-sack season and has two years left on his rookie deal—and acquiring multiple top-70 picks. Dallas has no real chance of “winning” a trade that involves Parsons, at least not from a PR perspective, but a deal like this could be better for its long-term prospects. —Ruiz
Jaguars
Cowboys get: a first-round pick (2027), a second-round pick (2026), Travon Walker, Travis Etienne Jr., and DaVon Hamilton
Jaguars get: Parsons and a third-round pick (2027)
Even though I think Jones is losing his touch as a negotiator, I don’t think everyone in the Cowboys front office has lost their mind, and that made cooking up trade packages complicated. Parsons isn’t just any player on an expiring deal; he’s a superstar who could be franchise tagged twice if the two sides can’t agree on an extension this summer. That makes him far too valuable to trade away unless the return enables the team to plug several present and future holes on the roster.
Enter Jacksonville, an organization that just turned over leadership to first-time head coach Liam Coen and young general manager James Gladstone and already demonstrated this offseason that it believes in making big splashes. Dealing away a 2027 first-round pick could be a painful proposition for a team that’s already traded away its 2026 first-rounder, but taking a huge swing for Parsons and pairing him with Josh Hines-Allen would give Jacksonville the most explosive tandem of pass rushers in the league. The Jags desperately need a true blue-chip player to anchor their pass rush after finishing in the bottom five in total quarterback hits and quick pressures (within the first 2.5 seconds of a pass) last season, and Parsons leads the league in quick pressures and is third in total hits over the past three years.
For Dallas, bringing in former no. 1 pick Travon Walker would give the team reliable production on the edge, even though questions linger about whether Walker can be a true impact player. Etienne would help make Dallas’s run game more efficient and could benefit from playing in a pass-heavy offense. Hamilton, meanwhile, can give this defense the kind of big-bodied anchor on the interior that it’s been missing for years. —Lee
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Raiders
Cowboys get: two first-round picks (2026, 2027), a third-round pick (2027), and a sixth-round pick (2026)
Raiders get: Parsons and a second-round pick (2026)
Would trading for Parsons and giving him a record-breaking contract be a responsible use of cap space after the Raiders gave Maxx Crosby a three-year, $106.5 million contract in March? No, probably not. But it would be pretty damn cool to watch. And with a 73-year-old head coach and 34-year-old quarterback, Las Vegas seems to be operating on a win-now timeline. So to hell with responsible roster management and thinking about the future. The planet is dying, anyway.
Pairing Crosby with Parsons wouldn’t just be fun to watch; it would be a terrifying prospect for opposing quarterbacks and offensive coordinators. The hell those two would wreak in the trenches would solve so many potential problems elsewhere in the defense. Specifically, it would elevate a secondary that’s in contention for the league’s worst heading into this season. Just check out this depth chart from Ourlads:
That secondary isn’t a problem that will be solved in a few offseasons, but a pass rushing duo of Crosby and Parsons would make the secondary’s job a lot easier. Quarterbacks can’t exploit you if they’re running for their lives two seconds into a snap.
As for the trade package, the Raiders have already provided us with a framework for a deal involving an elite edge rusher with the Khalil Mack trade to Chicago in 2018. Parting ways with three top-100 picks, including a pair of first-rounders, would make it tough to fill out the roster around the team’s stars, but the Raiders have one of the league’s best salary cap situations—they’ll have $99 million in space to work with next offseason as things stand—and all of their best players are signed for the next few seasons. They’ll have enough money to fill in any holes on the roster with veteran free agents. —Ruiz
Ravens
Cowboys get: a first-round pick (2026), a third-round pick (2026), Odafe Oweh, and T.J. Tampa
Ravens get: Parsons and a sixth-round pick (2027)
I would love to see the flurry of “Lamar Jackson has a superteam” social media posts after a deal such as this. Baltimore has built a strong foundation, but it would be nice if it decided to build a stars-first roster like the Eagles have done over the past half decade.
Baltimore is one of the best regular-season teams since 2020. Only Buffalo (plus-786) ranks ahead of Baltimore (plus-555) in point differential, and the Bills have been helped in that regard by playing in a weak AFC East compared to the gauntlet that is the AFC North. Baltimore’s issues, of course, have come in the playoffs, and while Jackson and the offense have gotten much of the blame for those shortcomings, the defense hasn’t been at its best in those big games either. Baltimore’s defense hasn’t forced more than one turnover in any playoff run during the Jackson era and could clearly use a game-changing pass rusher. Parsons could be the final piece the Ravens need to take down Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, or Joe Burrow and get over the top in the AFC.
But if we’re being realistic, this isn’t the kind of swing the Ravens usually take. They’ve made trades for players like edge rusher Yannick Ngakoue and linebacker Roquan Smith, but neither of those deals cost a first-rounder. Still, the potential to post that photo of Parsons, Jackson, running back Derrick Henry, and safety Kyle Hamilton standing together as the NFL’s new Avengers is pretty appealing. A man can dream, right? —Lee
Bengals
Cowboys get: a first-round pick (2026) and Trey Hendrickson
Bengals get: Parsons
While this trade would never happen, it would provide a convenient resolution for both franchises and the players involved. The Bengals are reluctant to pay a premium on an extension for a pass rusher on the wrong side of 30. The Cowboys are reluctant to reset the edge rusher market, which will be required for securing Parsons’s signature. Hendrickson has been just as productive as Parsons and would presumably accept a more modest deal than the Cowboys star is seeking. If Cincinnati throws in a first-round pick, Jerry could easily spin this as a win for Dallas—in his own mind, at least.
The last thing Bengals owner Mike Brown needs is another high-profile contract negotiation, but if he wants to beat the cheapskate allegations and show his increasingly vocal franchise quarterback that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to support Burrow’s quest for a ring, trading for and then paying top money to a defense-altering star like Parsons might do the trick. Again, this trade would never happen, but it might be the fairest swap I’ve proposed in this exercise. —Ruiz
Commanders
Cowboys get: two first-round picks (2026, 2027), Daron Payne, and Dorance Armstrong
Commanders get: Parsons and two fourth-round picks (2026, 2027)
If we’re going to spend some time in a dream world, why not cook up a trade that brings maximum pain to Cowboys fans and immense joy to one of Dallas’s rivals? The Commanders roster is in a weird place. Washington has added a bunch of veterans in the past two offseasons in the hope that young quarterback Jayden Daniels is exceptional enough to make it work. While things came together magically in 2024, expecting Washington to once again be the best fourth-quarter and fourth-down offense in the league is wishful thinking at best. Trading for Parsons to anchor the defense would be a more fruitful strategy for long-term contention.
We don’t have to spend any time trying to imagine what Parsons would look like in head coach Dan Quinn’s defense. Parsons had 40.5 sacks in the three seasons that Quinn spent as Dallas’s defensive coordinator, ranking fourth among all defensive players over that span. When Quinn has a pass rusher as ferocious as Parsons, it opens the door for him to be more aggressive with his secondary—and frankly, it makes Quinn’s coverage schemes look better than they actually are. Washington’s defensive success rate in coverage ranked in the top 10 last season, but so did its 32 percent blitz rate. Having a premier rusher can help lower Quinn’s need to blitz, which would make this defense less susceptible to explosive passes over 15 yards, which the Commanders allowed at the ninth-highest rate in the league last season.
On the scale of trades that could happen, the only one less likely than Dallas intentionally sending its best player to Washington would be Dallas sending its best player to Philadelphia—though imagine the content if yet another former Penn State star switched NFC East squads. —Lee
