EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Now that the 2025 regular season has ended with the Cowboys’ 34-17 loss to the New York Giants on a chilly Sunday afternoon from MetLife Stadium, it’s time to reflect on one of the main reasons this club finished 7-9-1.
Everything started in the offseason when the front office, mainly team owner Jerry Jones, got into a contract spat with their best player, pass rusher Micah Parsons.
Whether you think Jones messed up contract talks or if Parsons should have played under his existing contract, the trade made before the start of the season unnecessarily put this team on the edge of a cliff.
You don’t trade generational talent.
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The trade hurt the pass rush. The trade hurt the defense. The trade forced rookie head coach Brian Schottenheimer to address the move with his team before the season.
Moving forward, the Cowboys are in a similar situation: Can they sign George Pickens, the talented wide receiver? Now, Pickens isn’t perfect, but you love how he finished the season with 93 catches for 1,429 yards and nine touchdowns.
Sure, he was late for a meeting or two, and, yeah, he missed the team bus to the Las Vegas Raiders game. Those are things you have to live with. You don’t like the effort questions in the loss at Detroit, and Pickens said he didn’t have his best game against the Lions.
If you don’t want to live with Pickens, then let him hit the free agent market and keep it moving. But if the Cowboys do that, it sends a bad message to the locker room and a frustrated fanbase, which is expecting one of the more dynamic players in the NFL to return.
When it comes to signing Pickens to a long-term deal, the Cowboys need to take care of it sooner rather than later.
The loss of Pickens or an extended absence from the offseason program, which is a given if he’s placed under the franchise tag, will hurt the franchise yet again.
If you want to change the trajectory of the organization, then do things differently. Some of these contract talks are out of the Cowboys’ control because agents are involved, but let’s stop playing around with these silly games of not knowing agents’ names and talking about players taking less money because of marketing, thanks to having a star on your helmet.
Just pay the player fair market value.
When Parsons’ contract talks dissolved, it led to more issues for the defense, which ended the 2025 season historically bad.
One of the more alarming numbers from the season comes from when defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus moved to the coach’s box from the sideline, allowing him to make better in-game adjustments.
In those three games — with Eberflus as the “eye in the sky” — the defense gave up 34, 23 and 34 points.
So much for adjustments.
All of this isn’t to say Parsons would have made much of a difference, but he is one of the best players in the NFL.
And with him gone, the Cowboys needed someone to step up. The only person who stepped up in terms of pass rush was a player signed two weeks into the season, and that’s Jadeveon Clowney.
He raised his stock with a three-sack day Sunday, lifting his total to a club-leading 8 1/2 sacks.
Clowney was such a pro for the Cowboys. A grown-up was needed in the defensive room.
Pickens isn’t Clowney. He does his job with some swag and at times plays with an edge when pushed by the opponent.
He was part of an offense that averaged 27.7 points per game. Quarterback Dak Prescott, the passing leader going into the final game of the season, threw for 4,552 yards with 30 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. CeeDee Lamb also benefited from Pickens’ presence with a 75-catch, 1,077-yard season. Lamb did this while missing four games.
Everyone knows how valuable Pickens is to the Cowboys, and if he doesn’t return or is late to training camp because of a contract dispute, then you can’t say things will change.
Ending the Super Bowl drought, at 30 years and counting, by doing things the same old and tired way doesn’t bode well for the future.
Lamb and Prescott each said they plan on speaking to the front office about making sure Pickens and Clowney are in the fold for 2026.
“To be blunt, yeah, there’s going to be conversations,” Prescott said Sunday. “I’m sure they’re going to reach out and there’s going to be other topics, where I go to them first. There will be a lot of communication.”
If the communication doesn’t revolve around securing a Pickens deal sooner than later, you’re just wasting everybody’s time and leading to another repeat of a possible lost season.
The Cowboys can’t afford to do that again.
Dynamic duo: See photos from the Dallas Cowboys’ season finale against the New York Giants
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