Cowboys' Jerry Jones responds to chants about Micah Parsons amid contract stalemate

Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones heard chants of "Pay Micah!" from disgruntled fans over the weekend as star pass-rusher Micah Parsons remained without his desired multiyear contract extension. 

While speaking with reporters on Sunday, Jones downplayed those pleas from paying customers. 

"I heard it light, but not compared to how I heard them say, 'Pay Lamb [last year],'" Jones said, as shared by Todd Archer of ESPN. "That was a faint little sound compared to the way they were hollering last year, 'Pay Lamb.' ... Whoever's not in, you can count on a few hollering that. But it was a big, loud chant last year on Lamb."

Jones was referencing the contract situation involving star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb from last summer. Lamb didn't receive a four-year, $136M deal until after the Cowboys returned from their training-camp site in Oxnard, Calif. Later, news broke hours before Dallas' regular-season opener on Sept. 8 that starting quarterback Dak Prescott had agreed to a four-year contract extension.

"Really I don't have anything to comment there at all," Jones said when asked for an update on the Parsons saga. "Just no comment."

The market for players at the position was reset twice following last season. Most recently, T.J. Watt of the Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to a three-year, $123M extension that included $108M guaranteed before training camp. It's widely expected that Parsons will become the NFL's new highest-paid non-quarterback whenever he inks a deal. 

Shortly after it was learned that Dallas and tight end Jake Ferguson had agreed to a four-year, $52M contract extension, team executive vice president Stephen Jones said that the Cowboys "want to pay Micah." Somewhat interestingly, Stephen Jones added that Parsons has "got to want to be paid, too." 

That comment suggests the two sides aren't all that close to coming to terms on a deal in the closing days of July. 

"I mean, we still obviously got a lot going on," Stephen Jones said about possibly getting contracts done with Parsons and other players who are eligible for extensions. "You don't really like to talk about them until they're done. I would've told you this deal [Ferguson] may have gotten done before camp started. But you just got to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Everybody's got to get comfortable, and you go from there."  

On Sunday evening, Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio mentioned that he thinks the Cowboys will "offer [Parsons] something significantly less than they would have offered if he had held out" of training camp before Dallas' Week 1 game at the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 4. It remains to be seen how Parsons would react to receiving such an offer.