Was great to see the deal with Dak Prescott get done. Having him and CeeDee Lamb secured is great for the future of this team. But I can't help but wonder what happens now with Micah Parsons. How can the Cowboys take on another big contract and still have enough money to build a good team around those three stars? – Mark Salisbury/Chicago, IL
Patrik: It's a misnomer to think signing a player to a large extension makes things more difficult to sign the next player to a large extension. That's just not how this works. If we were discussing a true free agency signing, that would at least be closer to true but, in the case of Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, that's not the case. By extending Lamb, the Cowboys actually freed up more than $9 million toward this year's cap. By extending Prescott, they added tens of millions more toward this year's cap space. As of now, they're in the green by more than $26 million, and here's the kicker, they get to roll over 100 percent of any part of that they don't use this year, to next year. So let's say, hypothetically, they roll over the full $26 million, and you combine that with the coming annual increase to the salary cap itself. And here's the final kicker to it all: remember I said extending a player lowers the cap hit for that year? Parsons would be an extension, not a free agency signing, so all of this cap space wouldn't be required to get him a new deal, anyway. The question here will never be if they can or can't. It will be if their fine making him the highest-paid player ... ever.
Nick Eatman: Well, it's not something that have to do right now. I don't think they will do anything until the offseason at the earliest. If something made sense now, I could see the Cowboys doing it, but I have my doubts it gets done right now. The only reason why it'd make sense, is for the Cowboys to strike a deal that would help them lower next year's salary cap. Currently, the projections for a fifth-year option would be over $21 million. So a mega-contract for Parsons would have to make sense for him, and then also to lower next year's cap charge. Ultimately, the team has to decide if that's the direction they want to go. I know he gets a lot of scrutiny for the things he does in the middle of the week, but when it's time to play football - he can be a dynamic player, as he was Sunday. If Parsons plays like he did in Week 1, I don't know why the Cowboys would want to get rid of him. He's a game-changer that makes other players around him better. To me, I put up with anything that might seem annoying to others. I'll take him as the player and I'm sure the Cowboys will also - even with the hefty price tag.
