Micah Parsons drama is just the latest Cowboys circus act from Jerry Jones, whose business is NFL headlines

It’s summer, and the Dallas Cowboys’ best player isn’t happy.

Now here’s a riddle for you: Are we talking about 2025? Or 2019? Maybe 1993? Try just about every year under the man who makes a living off of this stuff: Jerry Jones.

Do you ever wonder how the Cowboys manage to weasel their way into every NFL conversation, be it a forecast of Super Bowl contenders or assessment of offseason spenders? After all, we don’t dare give the Arizona Cardinals or Indianapolis Colts this kind of pub, and yet Dallas’ drought of conference championship appearances is more than twice as long.

We joke about the Cowboys going almost 30 years without a Super Bowl bid like it’s some kind of cute feature of the franchise, then turn around and lambast organizations like the Chicago Bears for overseeing title droughts that are half as horrendous. Why?

Longest conference championship droughts in NFL

One answer is Dallas has papered over the bigger-picture gaps with superficial steadiness. For decades the Cowboys have boasted a stellar run of serviceable quarterbacks, stayed relatively patient with even mercurial head coaches to avoid wholesale rebuilds, and qualified as postseason hopefuls on a regular basis. That includes recently, with Dallas posting a winning record in seven of its last 11 seasons, giving Cowboys faithful just enough reason to keep believing; or at least quite a bit more than perennial basement-dwellers like the New York Jets.

Another reason for the undying Cowboys spotlight, which is powered more by owner-player squabbles than meaningful late-year victories? Jones is a showman. A ticket-seller for his own circus. He’s concerned with marketing just as much as securing the Lombardi Trophy he last lifted in January 1996. (That was three years before Micah Parsons, Jones’ latest nemesis at the negotiation table, was born.) And this is something he’s readily and repeatedly admitted!

We wouldn’t blame someone if they found it difficult to follow Jones’ train of verbalized thought. This is a man who:

• once described Parsons’ pass rushing skills as being “pure as mother’s milk”
• compared a decision regarding injured reserve usage to “circumcising a mosquito”
• explained the bittersweet nature of finalizing the roster with a nearly incomprehensible story about a “wagon master” burning “wagons for firewood” to “float the Mississippi River” and ride a “f—ing train” to California

And yet one thing has been very clear in Jones’ messaging, however muddled it may often be: The Dallas Cowboys are not above salacious drama. In fact, they welcome it. Why? Because business is Jones’ game.

He no doubt assembles his rosters with the intention of vying for another title. Parsons is pretty good, in case you weren’t aware. So are Lamb, Prescott, and a slew of others. But listen to Jones rant and rave over the years, and it’s hard to miss the fact he puts even more oomph into statements defending his role in growing the financial resume of his program, which by the way is ranked No. 1 by Forbes among the world’s most lucrative sports teams, and is the first to ever clear $10 billion in valuation.

What, you ask, does drama have to do with business? Everything!

NFL fans gather and tune in on Sundays for many reasons: communal bonding, hope for a unified sense of achievement, etc. They want underdog stories, tales of triumph, all the good stuff. On the flip side, the NFL doubles as reality TV, with some of the juiciest matchups often fueled by personal dynamics, such as Aaron Rodgers squaring off against his old team. And in today’s NFL, where fan engagement is cultivated and encouraged year-round, not just on Sundays, every piece of the calendar — free agency, spring workouts, summer training camps — is fertile ground for the kind of soap-opera dealings in which Jones specializes.

There’s a reason Jones insisted Cowboys fans shouldn’t “lose any sleep” over the fact Parsons, a four-time Pro Bowler and one of the game’s most gifted playmakers, literally stated he no longer wants to play for the team after feeling misled in contract talks with Jones this offseason: The man in charge was always interested in making this a spectacle. How can we believe otherwise, when he’s all but broadcast his larger-scale strategy?

• “If anybody is thinking we have more said about us, more visibility … that’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” Jones once told 105.3 The Fan. “I want to keep them talking about the Cowboys. If we got them talking about us, we’re doing our job.”
• “If it gets too dull around the Dallas Cowboys,” Jones once told reporters, “I know how to stir it up a little bit. I can get that done.”

So was Parsons’ standoff inevitable? Jones’ history of big-name contract dealings sure suggests as much. It’s not often Jones actually allows top-end talent to go elsewhere, though there are some notable exceptions (i.e. DeMarco Murray in 2015, Amari Cooper in 2022). But almost every one of his highest-profile extensions, which have occasionally reset the market at premium positions, came after a prolonged and publicized back-and-forth.

Notable Cowboys contract disputes

In Jerry’s world, it’s almost as if you mean nothing to the Cowboys until you’ve literally been labeled as such; the owner infamously dismissed Ezekiel Elliott, his All-Pro running back, during tense contract talks with a “Zeke who?” remark, and said he had “no sense of urgency” to lock up CeeDee Lamb before eventually doing so.

Just as plenty of blockbuster player trade requests (see: Lamar Jackson with the Baltimore Ravens in 2023, or Deebo Samuel with the San Francisco 49ers in 2022) prove to be little more than leverage plays, Jones’ seemingly ruthless dismissals are of a similar bent; he’s unashamed about trying to get the best deal for the Cowboys. And if he can generate some headlines while doing so, all the merrier, because the eyeballs are accumulating.

Author and reporter Gary Myers spent almost 300 pages documenting this approach in How ‘Bout Them Cowboys?, a book published in 2018 and propelled by hours of authorized one-on-ones with Jones. Inside it, Jones is equally, if not more, unabashed about what he’s out to do: keep the Cowboys relevant. Not only that, but make them the gold standard of NFL business.

The catch, of course, is that his gold standard isn’t solely or even primarily championships. It’s empire-building: in media attention, stadium appeal, suite sales, you name it. Let the rival Philadelphia Eagles make the Cowboys look like a “crying shame” in the standings, as Emmitt Smith once put it. Let them soar to Super Bowl heights thanks to forward-thinking roster-building that includes early contract extensions and almost no contentious player negotiations. Who cares? The pride and joy of Jones’ present-day Cowboys is not that they are progressive world-beaters on the gridiron. It’s the fact you will not discuss the NFL without discussing Jerry Jones’ Cowboys, no matter what you think or what the record books say about the franchise’s on-field fortitude.

Now will Jones’ collection of talent help him stumble into another crown someday? It’s certainly possible. On that note, will he eventually write a record-breaking check for Parsons, washing away the avoidable stink of a star talent voicing displeasure with The Star? Oh, we’re fairly sure he will. But only after we’ve all had enough time to talk and debate about it, putting some added spice on the story of the 2025 Cowboys.

This is Jerry Jones’ thing. This is his legacy. Historians will someday count the trophies, or lack thereof. In the meantime, the rest of us will be busy eating up whatever drama he feeds us … or, if we’re so enlightened, recognizing it as merely par for the course. He is the show in Arlington. He always has been. Always will be. And every contract dispute that threatens to “ruin the Cowboys’ credibility” is actually, in his mind, just another opportunity to bolster the brand.

Whether that’s the sign of incredible business or bankrupt philosophy in the NFL is for each of us to decide. Just don’t count on the Cowboys operating any differently so long as he’s calling the shots.