We're officially under a month away from NFL free agency kicking off. March 10 is when the free agent negotiating period begins, and March 12 at 4 p.m. ET is when the new league year begins and all negotiated trades and contracts can be made official.
Dallas Cowboys two-time, first-team All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons is well aware of the ticking clock ahead of free agency. He called out the Cowboys to make good on COO Stephen Jones' word that Dallas would evaluate its prior free agency approach and change the practice in which the franchise spent the fewest free agency money in the NFL last offseason ($20.47 million, lowest in the league per OverTheCap.com). Team owner and general manager Jerry Jones indicated at the NFL Honors red carpet last week that his son's words were purely lip service by saying the Cowboys' free agency plan of attack would "be in line" with prior years.
That's why Parsons is taking a public stand for a more aggressive approach in light of the Philadelphia Eagles, an NFC East rival, winning Super Bowl LIX to cap the 2024 season two years after winning the NFC in 2022. The Eagles have eight players with contracts whose total value is $50 million or more, and six of those players' deals possess average-per-year salaries of at least $20 million. The Cowboys have just four player contracts with total values above $50 million, and Prescott's ($60 million average-per-year) and Lamb's ($34 million average-per-year) deals are the only ones with an average-per-year salary of $20 million or more. Yet, the Eagles ($13.8 million in effective cap space) have more effective cap space entering the 2025 offseason than the Cowboys (-$7.03 million in effective cap space), per OverTheCap.com. Much of that has to do with Philadelphia's focus on re-signing its top players early to avoid paying top-of-the-market rates as well as using that head start to structure the deals in a way where they collectively relieve the pressure put on the team's cap space in a given, individual season.
"The talent is there, we just got to be aggressive the same way [other teams] did," Parsons said on Thursday, via The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, at an event with the Make-a-Wish Foundation located at Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas. "I don't want to sit back and watch other [teams] build and build and us stay the same. Definitely some call to action. I want to see us become aggressive and get some players that will come in and make an impact. I want to see us bring back our own players, that's just as important. Let's see what we can do there."
Parsons has campaigned for the Cowboys to trade for and re-sign 2023 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett as well as re-sign defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa. Before Dallas can approach doing both of those things, it would make sense for the Cowboys to address Parsons' contract as he is set to enter 2025 on his fifth-year option, the final season of his rookie contract. His 52.5 career sacks are the fifth-most in a player's first four seasons played since the NFL began tracking individual sacks as an official metric in 1982, and Parsons is the only player with at least 12 sacks in his first four seasons in the league.
Despite the four-time Pro Bowler attempting to jump-start his contract negotiations with Jerry Jones -- knowing he likes to typically slow-play extensions talks -- by setting up a meeting at the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff Semifinal in January, there hasn't been any progress. However, Parsons believes like quarterback Dak Prescott's and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb's negotiations, he and the Cowboys will eventually come to an agreement. "There's been no progress," Parsons said Thursday when asked about the extension talks. "But I'm pretty confident something will happen. We'll see. ... I really have a lot of respect for Jerry. We have great conversations all the time. There's definitely a plan in place to see how everything plays out."