A social-media dustup (not the Del Rio kind) broke out on Thursday regarding the question of whether the Cowboys and linebacker Micah Parsons have a “handshake deal” on a new contract.
Clarence E. Hill, Jr. of All City DLLS reports that a handshake deal exists. However, Parsons disputes it.
It doesn’t matter.
Handshake deals are meaningless. They’re unenforceable. They’re not worth the paper they’re not printed on.
The NFL has a specific procedure for executing player contracts. The document must be reduced to writing. The player’s NFLPA-certified agent must be involved. The deal must be approved by the NFL.
No informal agreement matters until the final deal is done. And if, as it appears, owner/G.M. Jerry Jones threw an arm around Parsons’s shoulder and spouted off a few numbers and Parsons nodded along, it doesn’t mean jack diddly squat.
Even if they capped it with a handshake.
The law of every state requires certain types of contracts (e.g., real estate transfers) to be reduced to writing. The law of the NFL, as set forth in the Collective Bargaining Agreement and by the mandates of the NFL’s Management Council, requires every player contract to be in writing. And signed. And approved.
Even if Parsons verbally agreed to every single term of the deal, it does not matter until the contract is signed, sealed, and delivered to 345 Park Avenue for final approval. Until then, the player can change his mind. The team can change its mind.
The entire issue of whether they shook hands on it obscures the deeper problem with the Cowboys’ way of doing business. Why dick around with a handshake deal when it’s fairly simple to sit down and hammer out a formal agreement?
The Cowboys love to wait for a ticking clock. Maybe they think it makes things more interesting. It definitely doesn’t make things cheaper. And it doesn’t create cap space that can be used on other players.
Again, we’re not saying there was or wasn’t or is or isn’t a handshake deal. We’re saying that it doesn’t matter, one way or the other. All that matters is whether the Cowboys and Parsons’s agent agree on the key terms, print out the paperwork, sign it, and send it in.
In the time it took me to hunt and peck this blurb, they could have gotten half of the work done.