Micah Parsons Trade Behind-The Scenes

• In a big behind-the-scenes article from ESPN about how the Cowboys ended up trading DE Micah Parsons to the Packers, the root of the split was traced to a meeting in mid-March between Parsons and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones where the two ended up negotiating a contract extension.
• Both sides had different accounts of what the meeting was supposed to be for, per ESPN. A source close to Parsons said Jones called Parsons in for a leadership meeting, only to steer the conversation toward contract talks. A Dallas source said Parsons asked for the meeting and Jones thought it was about his contract: “Jerry and Micah had met periodically over the last four years to discuss business and leadership issues. Jerry loved having these discussions with Micah. But the meeting in March wasn’t that, despite Micah saying publicly later it was to discuss leadership. Micah told Jerry, ‘I want to come in and discuss where we are,’ meaning a contract extension. So that was Jerry’s expectation.”
• The two sides met for three hours and discussed numbers, years and guaranteed money, according to ESPN. ESPN says Jones believed the deal was done when Parsons left his office, but the player called EVP Stephen Jones later that day, per a team source: “[Parsons] called Stephen and asked can we do this, can we change the numbers and up the guarantee. He started negotiating. He asked for several different elements and increases. This became a negotiation that Micah was in charge of.”
• Jerry Jones agreed to the sweetened terms and the net result was a five-year deal resetting the market for edge rushers at the time above Browns DE Myles Garrett at $40 million a year. ESPN says Cowboys sources continue to claim they offered “north of $150 million” in guarantees, more than the $136 million guaranteed Parsons eventually got from the Packers.
• However, that deal broke down when Parsons’ agent, David Mulugheta, didn’t rubber stamp the deal Parsons and Jones had agreed to. Jones said in an interview: “We were going to send [the terms] over to the agent and the agent said don’t bother because we’ve got all that to negotiate.”
• ESPN reports Parsons’ agency says it still hasn’t seen the full terms of the contract Jones negotiated directly with Parsons, and that Jones and Mulugheta never truly negotiated. The Cowboys would simply refer back to that contract and say Parsons could accept it if he wanted. However, Parsons’ team reportedly wanted to wait for the edge rusher market to develop and then blow past it as prices continued to rise. As that happened, ESPN says Jones became more comfortable with the idea of parting with Parsons and redistributing those resources across the roster.
• A source close to Jones says the owner felt entrenched because “Micah looked him in his eyes and said we have a deal,” adding Jones didn’t want to have to re-negotiate from a position...