There used to be a show on television in the early 1980s, a re-envisioning of a series based on comics and books from earlier in the century titled Ripley’s Believe it or Not. The premise, the most unbelievable instances were presented to the audience or reader to decide whether or not the tales were fact or fiction.
In a completely, totally unrelated happening on Thursday, Dallas owner Jerry Jones sat down to be a guest on former Cowboys star Michael Irvin’s podcast on Thursday. The most important part of the convo, of course, was the current stalemate between Jones and star edge rusher Micah Parsons, who is holding-in while awaiting a contract extension. In retelling how the sides have reached this current contentious point, Jones claims that Parsons’ agent told Jones to stick his last offer where the sun doesn’t shine.
Jones began the conversation by stating that the offer from over two months ago would’ve paid Parsons the most guaranteed money for any non-QB in the NFL. At the time, that number was above $89 million, which was the guaranteed amount in Justin Jefferson’s deal with Minnesota. Since, TJ Watt of the Steelers zoomed past that and has a deal for $108 million guaranteed.
Jones also stated matter-factly, that the Cowboys need Parsons to win, and that the star edge is worth the three or four players the team would be able to sign if they weren’t going to pay him.
It was the next segment that caught the attention of social media.
He’d be the highest guaranteed player ever on defense, with what he’s been offered… When we wanted to send the details to the agent, the agent told us to stick it up our ass.
Micah and I talked, and then we were going to send it over to agent. And we had our agreements on term, amounts, guarantees, everything, and we were going to send it to the agent. And the agent said ‘don’t bother, because we got all that to negotiate.’ Well I had already negotiated, I had already moved off my mark on several areas. The issue very frankly is we’ve had the negotiation in my mind. The agent’s trying to get his nose in it, and try to come in there and improve off the mark that had been already set.
Jones went on to say that the agent’s role is simply to come in after the deal was struck and create the deal and hammer out the minor details.
Can Jones’ recall of how things went down be taken for 100% truth? Could he be leaving out things that he might have said that led to agent David Mulugheta responding in such a manner? Is he minimizing the fact that in today’s game, bypassing the agent for the major points doesn’t happen?
That remains to be seen. Jones has been on the receiving end of a ton of backlash since Parsons publicly demanded a trade back at the end of last month as a response to words Jones spoke at the beginning of Cowboys’ training camp.
Jones has been dismissive of Parsons’ request and things have felt pretty bleak for those looking from the outside. But also, Jones has recently admitted how he’ll create drama in order to keep the Cowboys in the spotlight, and the timing of the release of the Netflix documentary on the team’s glory days, along with the start of the season, have a large contingent of fans thinking all of this is just for show.
Which is it? Only time will tell if things work out now, during the season, or after, when the Cowboys will have the ability to place the franchise tag on Parsons to avoid him hitting free agency.
Fans can watch the entire video below.
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Here’s where Jerry Jones says Parsons’ agent told him to place Cowboys’ contract offer
Reporting by K.D. Drummond, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
