OXNARD, Calif. — At 11:04 a.m. Pacific Time and beneath an uncharacteristically cloudy Southern California sky, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones gradually ambled down a corridor toward his annual training camp-opening microphone. Trailed by parts of the team’s brain trust — including his son Stephen and new head coach Brian Schottenheimer — Jerry walked his long, straight path toward the dais until the journey to his seat necessitated a left turn.
And boy did he ever take it.
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In what struck a chord as one of the more strained and seemingly unnecessary laundry list of sideways comments about several of his core players, Jerry took an unquestionably hard left turn to start a season — taking a sliding scale of passive-aggressive digs at edge defender Micah Parsons, quarterback Dak Prescott, cornerback Trevon Diggs and offensive tackle Terence Steele.
Along the way, Jerry and son Stephen also revealed that neither has spoken to Parsons’ agent David Mulugheta about a contract extension, with Jerry at several points seeming to suggest he had already worked out a deal directly with his star edge rusher during a face-to-face meeting last March.
“Let’s put it like this: We went over every possible detail you could go over and had [an] agreement,” Jerry said.
Asked if he was surprised that camp was starting without a contract extension with Parsons, Jones replied, “I’m not surprised with anything” before adding, “this is not negative at all.”
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While that might have been Jerry’s personal perception Monday afternoon, some of his comments to open camp certainly didn’t appear to land positively — intermingling his contract musings with hinted notions that the team might have done two extensions too soon (Diggs and Steele) while also pointing out missed games in 2024 by Parsons and Prescott.
“Just because we sign [Parsons] doesn’t mean we’re going to have him. He was hurt six games last year. Seriously,” Jones said, incorrectly, as Parsons missed four games last season. “I remember signing a player for the highest paid at the position in the league and he got knocked out two-thirds of the year — Dak Prescott. So there’s a lot of things you can think about, just as the player does, when you’re thinking about committing and guaranteeing money.”
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (right) made some pointed comments about players and their contracts amid an ongoing negotiation with star pass rusher Micah Parsons. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Unsurprisingly, that landed sideways, drawing the attention of former star pass rusher J.J. Watt, who chimed in on social media with his own tongue-in-cheek criticism.
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“Anytime you can publicly take a dig at your star quarterback and your star pass rusher simultaneously, right before the season begins, you just gotta take it…,” Watt posted on X in response to Jerry’s comment. “Nothing makes guys want to fight for you more than hearing how upset you are that they got hurt while fighting for you.”
That response from Watt was then reposted on X by Parsons himself — which could certainly be construed as a clear exchange in a contract negotiation that seems to be inching toward teetering. It’s especially the case with so many unknowns still hanging in the balance in terms of what Parsons is prepared to do in camp for the Cowboys. The entire Dallas brain trust passed on speculating whether Parsons would actually take part in practices or be a “hold-in,” essentially being on hand each day but declining to take part in practices.
That’s an unknown that extends to how an extension is going to finally be reached, with Parsons having previously said he wants his negotiation to go though his agent. Thus far, neither Jerry or Stephen appear interested in negotiating the contract through Mulugheta — a reality that may have grown more complicated as other pass rusher deals have funneled in over the course of the offseason, including the record-setting three-year, $123 million pact inked by Pittsburgh Steelers pass rusher T.J. Watt earlier this month. The lingering impasse between the Cowboys and Parsons stretching from March to now is at least suggestive that numbers in the negotiation are changing. But the Cowboys’ stance on engaging with Mulugheta is apparently not. At one point Monday, Stephen Jones said Jerry doesn’t talk to agents.
Asked why neither of the two top negotiators in the front office have spoken to Parsons’ agent, Jerry side-stepped the question.
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“I’m really not going to get into responding to what Micah said I said, or what [Micah] said he said, or what Mulugheta said, or what Stephen said,” Jerry responded. “I’m not getting into any of that at all. We’re where we are. I sign the check. Period.”
Jerry then added of Parsons, “Micah, he’s confident in himself, he should be, he’s extraordinarily bright — I can’t emphasize that enough. He’s very capable of negotiating anything he wants to negotiate.”
Asked when he would arrive at a sense of urgency to get a deal done, Jerry said the point didn’t exist.
“I don’t have that and I don’t think it’s a very good characterization at all to put the word ‘urgent’ in,” Jerry said. “We have a contract.”
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Of course, Jones’ comments weren’t limited to Parsons as he framed his thinking on getting a deal done. Beyond invoking the reality that he signed Prescott to a massive contract extension, he also pointed at the extensions of Diggs and Steele, which were signed in 2023 and have seen both players struggle with injuries or poor performance.
“Frankly, should we have waited on [extensions for] Diggs and Steele?” Jones seemed to ask rhetorically.
Notably, the Cowboys triggered a clause in Diggs’ contract that peeled back his base salary by $500,000 in 2025 for failing to participate in at least 84% of the team’s offseason workouts. Diggs spent the majority of his offseason working to rehab his surgically repaired left knee while in South Florida. He also did the rehabilitation with his own specialists, rather than under the watchful eye of Dallas’ training staff — a move that one source told Yahoo Sports significantly irked the front office. Jerry made it clear Monday he expects Diggs to be a leader in this camp, despite starting off on the physically unable to perform list.
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All told, it was a day of remarks that raised eyebrows about the highly paid core of the Cowboys’ roster and how they’re shaping Jerry’s negotiating mindset moving forward. In a way, it amounted to the camp fight that nobody in Dallas asked for, but everyone watched unfold anyway. An ownership attitude with some dark clouds, punctuated by gray Southern California skies and yet another unforgettable Jerry Jones introduction to the season.