This isn’t anything new from Jerry Jones.
If you watched Netflix’s America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, you saw how the Cowboys’ owner has turned contract negotiations into performance art for decades. The Emmitt Smith holdout in 1993. The public feuds with coaches and players alike. It’s all part of the Jerry Jones playbook that prioritizes content creation over conventional football operations.
But if you ask NBC’s Cris Collinsworth whether he expects Micah Parsons to play in the NFL’s season opener between Dallas and Philadelphia next Thursday night, his answer’s pretty definitive.
“Of course. Of course,” Collinsworth said during a recent appearance on The Dan Patrick Show when asked if he’s preparing for Parsons to suit up. “Are you watching the Netflix thing on the Cowboys? Are you seeing any of that? Of course, the Emmitt Smith thing. He held out for the first two games. They lose the first two games. Jerry’s been down that road. We’ve seen all this. They want to be a show. They want to be all these things.”
Collinsworth expects Parsons to play despite the pass rusher demanding a trade in August after negotiations went sideways. He’s been showing up to training camp but sitting out drills, stuck in the kind of messy standoff that Jerry Jones seems to live for.
I’m told Micah Parsons is in the building, per source. #Cowboys https://t.co/Hr2MlvNbpe
— JosinaAnderson (@JosinaAnderson) August 25, 2025
The situation reached peak absurdity when Jones suggested one reason for hesitating on a long-term deal was that Parsons might “get hit by a car, seriously.” Jones also publicly criticized Parsons for missing six games last season due to injury, although Parsons actually missed only four games and still recorded his fourth straight season with 12 or more sacks.
“But, the problem for Micah is they really do control him for the next three years,” Collinsworth explained. “He’s under contract, and he can be franchise tagged for the two years after that. I don’t know what the contract was that he agreed to. It wasn’t a great concept to go in and sit down with Jerry Jones and talk about the contract. It’s not a great concept for the players’ association to allow NFL players in the room to negotiate with NFL owners. Those guys are trained killers. They’re billionaires. They know how to negotiate deals. As an agent, there is no way I’m letting Micah Parsons anywhere near Jerry Jones. I don’t even want them to have a private conversation on the field. I don’t want any of that stuff.”
That’s exactly what happened, according to reports. Parsons and Jones held multiple conversations during the spring that the owner interpreted as negotiations culminating in a deal. Parsons viewed them as casual conversations, expecting his agent to handle formal negotiations. When Parsons’ agent attempted to engage, the Cowboys declined, insisting they already had a deal in place.
The dysfunction extends beyond just contract talks with Micah Parsons. Just recently, Kyle Brandt wondered on Good Morning Football whether the Cowboys have become “a content company that also does football.” Between Netflix’s docuseries on their 1990s dynasty, the cheerleaders’ reality show, and Jones’ recent acting cameo on Landman, it’s fair to wonder whether Jerry would rather win a Lombardi Trophy or an Academy Award.
“Once you do, you know, man up,” Collinsworth continued. “He said he was willing to take less earlier in whatever it was in the offseason, where he said, ‘Oh, I’d take less to play for the Cowboys,’ and all that. And Jerry took it and ran with it, and whatever was said behind closed doors, Jerry feels like he has a closed deal.”
That willingness to “take less” has since evaporated as Parsons’ market value soared. T.J. Watt just got $123 million over three years from Pittsburgh, which means Parsons is probably looking at $40 million per year now. Stephen A. Smith thinks Parsons should sit out the whole season to get Jerry’s attention, but that’s a tough sell for a 26-year-old in his prime.
The contract drama has generated so much content that fake Parsons quotes praising other teams have gone viral, fooling local broadcasts in the process. It’s the perfect encapsulation of how the Cowboys have become as much about narrative as they are about football.
But Collinsworth’s prediction likely carries weight. The veteran broadcaster has covered enough Cowboys drama to recognize the patterns. Jones thrives on the spectacle right up until game time, when football usually wins out.
This probably ends with a last-minute extension where everyone saves face and Jones gets to milk every drop of drama from the situation.
And for Collinsworth calling Thursday night’s opener, the expectation is that all this manufactured chaos will resolve itself in time for kickoff. After decades of Jerry Jones productions, that’s probably the safest bet in football.