After months and months at the negotiating table, the Dallas Cowboys are still locked in a back-and-forth with star linebacker Micah Parsons, who is currently looking to reap the rewards of his four years of service with a fat payday. The front office could just pay him and get the deal done, but as is now often the case with team president and CEO Jerry Jones, the group has elected to drag things out long enough that the issue has now infiltrated the training camp conversation.

Parsons is handling the slight quite well; he is at least showing up to camp anyway, when many in his position would not (take the Bengals' Trey Hendrickson, for example), and he's being respectful enough in his comments about the situation, even when Jones says something the rest of the NFL world can't believe.

The good news, however, is that quarterback Dak Prescott is optimistic a deal will get done at some point. Because (1) Parsons deserves to get paid, and (2) because that's just how these things go.

"I don't know if there's a correct way to handle it, to be honest with you," Prescott said, per ESPN's Todd Archer. "I will say that I think he deserves to get paid. I think he should get paid, and, ultimately, going off the history of what I've seen, he will get paid. Hopefully, it's sooner than later."

The quarterback continued to explain that this is just kind of the MO for the team at this point re: new deals.

"I mean it's an each and every year conversation whether it's myself, Zack Martin, CeeDee Lamb, now Micah Parsons," Prescott continued. "It's a part of it in a sense. Now, is it something that I wish any of us were going through? Absolutely not, but I think Micah's doing a helluva job with it being here. He's a great teammate, showing up obviously not just on the field and being focused, but whether it be in the camaraderie, hanging out, dinner. He's not just doing it to sign off and say, 'Hey, Jerry look at me,' but he wants to be out there practicing. And honestly, I'm glad he's not. He can't do that to himself. That's the business of it. That's the business of a holdout, so I do think he's taken some great steps with being here."

As Prescott mentioned, he signed a $240 million, four-year extension with the Cowboys in September 2024, while Lamb, meanwhile, earned a $136 million, four-year extension shortly before that. Lamb had held out of training camp during negotiations.

All to say, the quarterback does have a point; although the two aforementioned deals came in later than you'd expect, both stars got what they wanted in the end. Hopefully, that happens for Parsons.

As it stands, the Penn State export is entering the final year of his rookie deal in the fall.


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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dak Prescott Says There's Only One Way Cowboys' Micah Parsons Contract Saga Will End.

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