Brian Schottenheimer: Micah Parsons negotiations are a “two-way street”

When it comes to drafting and developing players, the Cowboys do a great job. When it comes to giving their home-grown stars new deals on a timely basis, they don’t.

Foot-dragging handcuffed the Cowboys in free agency a year ago, with the cap-savings from new contracts for receiver CeeDee Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott coming too late to matter. This year, as linebacker Micah Parsons waits for his overdue (frankly) second deal, will ownership once again use an all brakes, no gas approach?

“I think they understand that,” Schottenheimer said Thursday regarding whether the front office understands the impact of delay, via Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports. “Look, the business of the NFL has become so big and again it’s a two-way street. There’s negotiations and sometimes those negotiations take time, [so] it’s our job to focus on the guys that are there.”

They don’t have to take time. When an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect exists, the two sides can agree to an artificial deadline and get the deal done. When it doesn’t, the process gets delayed until real deadlines (for Lamb and Prescott, the start of the regular season) arrive.

If the Cowboys were serious about extending Parsons’s contract and, in turn, creating cap space that can be used early in free agency, the deadline would be arriving soon — and the deal would get done before it.

It’s not as if Parsons won’t get a second contract, unless the Cowboys are thinking about trading perhaps the best defensive player in the entire league. And it never gets cheaper. So why not get it done at a time that is conducive to doing other business?

There aren’t many explanations for waiting. Either ownership doesn’t understand how it works (and if an idiot like me understands it, there’s no reason they shouldn’t) or ownership knows how things work and deliberately wants to delay.

The consequences of waiting are obvious. Parsons could (and should) do what Lamb did in 2024, staying away from everything until he gets paid. Which means Parsons won’t be as ready for Week 1 as he could be. The Cowboys won’t reduce his $24 million cap number for 2025 in time to sign new players at positions of need.

And there’s no benefit, beyond keeping the cash in their own coffers for several more months.

“We’re always going to start with our guys,” Schottenheimer said. “We know them, right? We’ve got history with them. We’ve developed those guys. We understand their strengths, their weaknesses, what they bring to the table from a culture standpoint. So, again, it all depends on how things go. It’s a very competitive business. It’s a very competitive time of year.”

It’s harder to compete at this “very competitive time of year” when ownership waits to finalize contracts that will be done later.

While this one specific change won’t immediately propel the Cowboys to the NFC Championship for the first time in 30 years, the stubborn refusal to accelerate the process for multiple key players is one of the various factors contributing to the longest championship game drought in the conference — by 15 years.