Dan Graziano: Cowboys banking on Micah Parsons’ ‘love for football’ amid contract standoff for Week 1

ESPN’s Dan Graziano dished a bit on the Micah Parsons contract standoff during an appearance on Get Up on Friday. The Cowboys are preparing to face the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 1, and there’s still no guarantee Dallas’ star player will be on the field.

Is a resolution on the horizon? At the moment, Graziano believes Jerry Jones and the rest of the Cowboys brass are banking on Parsons’ love fo r football being the reason he takes the field, because there’s no guarantee they’ll agree to a new contract before Sept. 4.

“The way to look at this at this point is that Micah has a decision to make,” Graziano stated. “He could show up and practice next week, play in the game, and play on his current contract—that’s going to pay him almost $22 million this year. And then the threat of the franchise tag looms next spring. He could call his agent and say, ‘You know what? We’re beaten. Let’s just do it. Take it, go, go.’ I mean, again, these are the options available to him.

“He could sit out the game. Now, that’s the key—because until he actually does that, you can threaten to sit out, but until you do it, the other side has no real reason to believe you will. So it’s up to Micah.

“At this point, I think what the Cowboys—with Brian Schottenheimer and Jerry Jones—are counting on is that Micah loves to play football. That he doesn’t want to walk into his locker room and have to say to his te ammates, ‘Good luck against the Eagles, guys.’ And that he’ll show up and play—whether that’s on a new contract done on Jerry’s terms or on the current contract he’s signed through 2025. I don’t know.

“If Micah doesn’t show up and play, then I think the leverage starts to shift toward him a little bit. Because at that point, the Cowboys have to take it seriously. Now, he can’t sit out the season, because if he does, the contract would toll, and he’d be in the same position next year. But he could sit out the first 11 weeks and then show up, right? So there are options available to him. The question is: which one is he going to take?”

Alas, it’d be prudent for the Cowboys to get a deal done with Micah Parsons before Week 1, and lock in their star player for many years to come. Time will tell if it comes to fruition, but it seems like Dallas is relying on hope a bit more than their fans would like heading into the 2025 season.