One of the biggest storylines surrounding this offseason was the contract impasse between the Dallas Cowboys and Micah Parsons. After several weeks of speculation, it's all ended with the four-time Pro Bowl edge rusher going to the Green Bay Packers. And based on how the whole thing unfolded, fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars surely had flashbacks of a player who left under similar circumstances.
Parsons has been looking for a new contract, one that reflects his status as the top pass rusher in the NFL. Once it was clear that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wasn't negotiating in good faith, he requested a trade.
Jones scoffed at the request, expecting Parsons to flinch. But he didn't. He remained unfazed, and once the Cowboys owner realized that the former Penn State Nittany Lion wouldn't flinch, he sent him packing to the Packers in return for defensive tackle Kenny Clark and a pair of two-round selections.
One sign that things were going sideways and a trade was possible took place when Parsons was looking for a second opinion on the back tightness that held him out of training camp and the preseason. Just hours after the injury update, Dallas sent the All-Pro to Green Bay.
If you're keeping track of the whole situation, by now you have surely figured out that it played out the same way the Jalen Ramsey trade did.
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Like the Cowboys, the Jaguars traded a premier player (because they didn't want to pay him)
Like Micah Parsons, Jalen Ramsey became an All-Pro early in his career, and there's a chance he'll end up getting enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And like the Cowboys, the Jaguars massively dropped the ball.
Ramsey, the fifth-overall selection in 2016, was an All-Pro cornerback by his second NFL season. Not surprisingly, he wanted a pay bump in Year 3, when he became eligible for a contract extension. But Jacksonville wasn't overly concerned with giving him a new deal.
The situation was so bad that Ramsey stormed off a game in the 2019 season. Then, he got into a heated argument with then-general manager Dave Caldwell and then executive vice president of football operations Tom Coughlin. Around the same time of the exchange, the former Florida Seminole missed time with a back injury. And not long after, he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for ** wait for it ** two first-round picks (and a fourth-round selection).
By now, the parallelisms should be clear. And sadly, things didn't have to turn out the way they did with Parsons and Ramsey. In both cases, not giving them a new deal seemed like a power play, which is puzzling.
Players have a finite window to make money in the NFL; owners don't have to worry about that. But leaving that aside, Parsons is a cornerstone, just like Ramsey at his peak. You simply have to reward your best players, and both the Cowboys and the Jaguars failed to do it when the time came.
The silver lining, if you're a Jaguars fan, is that there's a new regime in place. It may be too early to tell how things will play out long term, but the team is seemingly trending in the right direction. And if you're a Cowboys fan, thank you for reading, and be assured that better times will come... eventually.
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