The Philadelphia Eagles hoisted another Lombardi Trophy on Sunday. The Washington Commanders are poised to be the toast of the offseason with glowing profiles of Jayden Daniels and Dan Quinn's swift turnaround. The Giants offer intrigue with the No. 3 pick and need a big offseason to save jobs.
The host of NFC East storylines underscores the malaise in which the Dallas Cowboys currently toil. Not bad enough for angry upheaval. Not promising enough for unbridled optimism. Not interesting enough for resonating debate. Jerry Jones' club simply is.
Micah Parsons desperately wants things to change.
The pass rusher told reporters Thursday from a Make-A-Wish charity event that he is pleading for action from the front office this offseason. Parsons pointed to the Eagles' aggression in building a championship team as the model Dallas must imitate.
"This is a [Cowboys] team that, over the past couple years, we kind of got our wins and losses against them, and battled with them," Parsons said, via the team's official website. "Obviously, talent is here, but we've just got to finish; and go be aggressive the same way they did, you know? "I don't wanna sit back and just watch other people build and build and build and I [we] stay the same, so we definitely need some call to action."
Getting a contract extension done with Parsons early would aid that call to action, giving the Cowboys extra cap space to maneuver.
Dallas has been content to pay some of their own in recent seasons, inking Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb to big long-term contracts last year. But with a Swiss-cheese roster, the Cowboys must make some moves this offseason if they want to keep up with the proverbial Joneses in the NFC East.
"I want to see us be aggressive, and I wanna see us get players that's gonna help us -- that's gonna come in and make an impact," Parsons said. "And I wanna see us bring back our own players that are just as important, and let's see what we can do there. There's been a new wave in the NFL. You saw it with the Rams, and [even though they] drafted some of those guys, you always can't hit like that -- you know what I mean? The 49ers went and got Javon Hargrave, and they went and got some impactful players on their side. …
"There is some success to it. You look at Philly and how they went and got Saquon [Barkley] and how they went and Zack [Baun]. Everyone doesn't need a max deal. There are great quality players that can do one-year or two-year deals, obviously we've seen that this year. There's been a trend."
The Cowboys haven't been aggressive in free agency in more than a decade, content to shop in the bargain aisle while letting some homegrown players sign elsewhere -- including a handful of defenders who defected to Washington last offseason. We'll see if the looming threat of irrelevance changes the calculus for Dallas or whether Parsons is simply pleading to closed ears.
