The Dallas Cowboys are going to play a football game in 10 days. With all due respect to the preseason, we are talking about a real football game. The results will be documented in the standings and history books, you get the picture.
Dallas will visit the Philadelphia Eagles who are arguably the best team in the NFL. The fact that they are going to raise a Super Bowl banner corroborates this idea. It is unknown whether the best player on the Cowboys roster will be a part of the festivities.
We are
all aware of the fact that the Cowboys are in contract negotiations with Micah Parsons. These negotiations have, like they did with CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott, rippled through the Oxnard portion of training camp and the entire preseason.
Prescott was infamously signed on the day that the season began in 2024. Lamb came 13 days prior to that. As noted, the countdown clock reads 10 days at our current moment in time, in case you wanted perspective.
The Cowboys won their opener last year so the Lamb and Prescott situations did not seem to be issues (although things got bumpy after that for the team overall). Parsons has not taken part in any on-field work to this point which has cast doubt on his availability in terms of the season. This is something that Adam Schefter discussed during Monday’s edition of Get Up. Schefter also brought up the back tightness that Parsons has reportedly been dealing with.
“Even if he were out there a week from Thursday night, which there are certainly no assurances or indications he will be right now, he’s going to be limited at best.”
“Micah Parsons could not go in and play a full football game next Thursday night. And, again, the Dallas Cowboys say an MRI on his back came back clean.”
“He says there’s still back tightness. A hard thing to argue with. And I have a feeling that these types of issues may hang over this team and this situation this season.”
From a technical standpoint, Parsons has been missing time with the back tightness in question. Schefter notes that an MRI came back on this that suggested all was well from a medical standpoint, but Schefter put it well in saying that it is a hard thing to argue with. If Parsons feels his back is tight, and so tight that he can’t play, that would lead to more tightness and tension between him and the organization.
Consider that following last week’s preseason finale Trevon Diggs, who was recently activated off of the PUP list himself, was asked if he thinks Parsons is going to play in the season opener. Diggs noted that it all depends on his back.
If it isn’t obvious this is where the next inflection point lies within this whole saga. The Cowboys could argue that Parsons’ back is fine from a medical perspective, but Micah could note that it still feels tight and that he is unable to play (as Schefter noted this is hard to prove one way or the other). Without making any direct accusations here, it stands to reason that Parsons’ back tightness could/would be taken care of once a contract extension is taken care of (if that isn’t obvious by now) which is why the next two weeks could get messy. Maybe even messier than everything to this point.
We are approaching that fork in the road and if an extension isn’t taken care of, it is going to be interesting to see what each side of the negotiations do next.
