What are the Cowboys doing?!? The Micah Parsons talks are just the latest in $100 million worth of mistakes

The Dallas Cowboys' ongoing contract disputes with key players Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons could lead to significant impacts on the team's future performance, influencing betting considerations for punters looking to place wagers on their upcoming season outcomes.

In an era in which "player empowerment" is a buzzy phrase and NFL teams pour the GDP of small nations into finding and retaining superstar players, one franchise has chosen to proudly install itself as the test case for what a team could do if it didn't care about making its best players happy.

While most franchises coddle their young stars publicly and privately, sign them to contracts as quickly as allowed and position them as core pieces for their Super Bowl runs, the Dallas Cowboys have posited an entirely different argument: What if we just make them mad with no real benefit in return?

And so, in a league in which lesser quarterbacks have been happily paid tens of millions of dollars and have been given glowing reports by the coaches and general managers whose job security is tied to their success, the Cowboys discussed how paying a quarterback too much money hurts a team's chances of winning a Super Bowl before eventually paying Dak Prescott.

They suggested they wouldn't redo star guard Zack Martin's contract because they had to pay pass rusher Micah Parsons, before then redoing Martin's contract. Here, in 2025, the Cowboys might have taken things just a tiny bit too far.

With Parsons entering the final year of his rookie deal on a fifth-year option, they and their star edge rusher spent the spring publicly throwing out vaguely positive ideas about an extension. Although most teams would have already done an extension with such a talented player after his third season in the league, 31 other franchises would have avoided saying what Dallas team owner Jerry Jones said, noting that Parsons missed six games with an injury last season. (It was four.)

Parsons responded days later by publicly requesting a trade, citing both the public comments and an attempt by the Cowboys to negotiate a deal while excluding his agent, a move Jones didn't seem to deny.

Now, I'll be clear: Just as Myles Garrett requested a trade out of Cleveland before signing a market-resetting contract to stay with the Browns, I don't think Parsons is heading anywhere. Dallas fans have every right to be terrified of their local team trading away a star player after the Luka Doncic fiasco, but this is hardly the first time the Cowboys have pushed a negotiation to its breaking point before getting a contract done with a star player.

In fact, it seems difficult for them to conduct their business in any other way in terms of recent negotiations.

Instead, what has been missing from this conversation is one very important and impossibly frustrating fact. It would be one thing if the Cowboys were toeing an incredibly hard line on contract negotiations and getting players to take team-friendly compromises on contracts in the process. Bill Belichick's Patriots teams were known for their aggressive stances on contracts, in terms of both forcing stars such as Corey Dillon and Randy Moss to take pay cuts to get their foot in the door and then moving on from stalwarts such as Moss, Logan Mankins and Lawyer Milloy when their contracts outstripped their level of play, but Belichick was able to extract meaningful concessions and build better rosters as part of those negotiating tactics.

The Cowboys aren't saving any money with their negotiating process. In fact, the delays and inability to get these deals done on time have cost them millions of dollars, significant negotiating leverage and untold amounts of goodwill with both their players and fans.

Success, as the Patriots dynasty showed, can overshadow a lot of sudden breakups, tough negotiations and fan favorites leaving town. The Cowboys haven't been able to fall back on their on-field performance as proof they're making the right decisions.

Let's look at Dallas' three biggest stars and what the organization's negotiating philosophy has accomplished. How much has the organization cost itself by being too slow or too reticent to get contracts done with Prescott, Parsons and CeeDee Lamb? What has that meant for the franchise? And what could have happened if the Cowboys had been more like the Eagles in getting contracts done before absolutely necessary?

Let's start at quarterback, where the Cowboys spent a half-decade hemming and hawing before paying Prescott more money than any other quarterback. What has gone down with Prescott, and what could have happened if they had been smarter about how they approached the situation?

Espn