Like teammate Courtland Sutton, Denver Broncos All-Pro defensive lineman Zach Allen didn’t skip any days of training camp while his agent argued for a new contract.

Unlike Micah Parsons in Dallas, Trey Hendrickson in Cincinnati and Terry McLaurin in Washington, things never got contentious with the front office in Denver.

“This is my happy place,” Allen said Saturday after signing a four-year, $102 million extension with the Broncos that includes nearly $70 million in guarantees and makes him one of the NFL’s highest-paid interior defensive linemen in average annual salary.

Allen said the way both sides “handled this was just awesome.”

“The fact that we were able to go about this the way we have compared to probably some other things around the league is a testament to what we’re building,” he said.

“It’s a business but it never got contentious,” Allen said. “And I think that was a cool thing was just the way that everybody handled it.”

Allen said he told his agent, Tommy Condon, “I want to obviously get the best deal possible ... but I care about these people, I care about this place, and I don’t want it to get ugly. The way he went about it, the way the team went about it was awesome.”

Allen’s extension came less than a week after Sutton signed a four-year, $92 million deal that features $41 million in guaranteed money. Sutton also thanked the Broncos’ ownership group and general manager George Paton for the tenor of talks as he continued to take the field during training camp content in knowing a deal was at hand.

In many ways Allen has served as the fulcrum of Denver’s dominant defense the last two seasons, applying pressure up the middle to augment the Broncos’ premier pass rush and stellar secondary.

A third-round pick by Arizona out of Boston College in 2019, Allen joined the Broncos two years ago, following defensive coordinator Vance Joseph to Denver. He had five sacks in his first season in Denver and a career-best 8 1/2 sacks last season when he earned second-team All-Pro honors and the Broncos set a franchise record with a league-best 63 sacks.

Jones: Cowboys won’t trade Parsons

Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones does not intend to trade Micah Parsons after the star defensive end said he wants to leave the team amid a breakdown in negotiating a contract extension.

“Surely you guys have been around this stuff and know how to recognize negotiation talk, that type of thing. And so that’s where I put that,” Jones said after practice Saturday, one day after Parsons posted on social media to request a trade.

No stranger to public and prolonged disputes with standout players, Jones insisted the standoff with Parsons is no different than past situations ranging from alternating approaches by quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb last year to the 1993 in-season holdout by running back Emmitt Smith.

“Well, it’s just that you’ve seen it so often, and you’ve seen it with other clubs. You go through the process. It’s a highly sensitive time when you’re guaranteeing somebody almost $200 million, that’s sensitive stuff,” Jones said.

Parsons remains at training camp, where he has yet to practice because of a back injury. He did not speak to reporters, leaving the field at the same time as Jones was fielding questions for more than 15 minutes.

Parsons is going into the final season of his five-year rookie contract and is seeking a new deal that would almost certainly make him the highest-paid defender in NFL history. He could be franchise tagged in 2026 without a contract extension.

A first-round draft pick in 2021, Parsons has at least 12 sacks in each of his four seasons with the Cowboys and 52 1/2 for his career.

Chiefs’ Rice say he’s ‘completely changed’

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice has “completely changed” after causing a chain-reaction crash last year on a Dallas highway that left multiple people injured, cost him more than $1 million in a settlement to victims, and resulted in a 30-day jail sentence that he will have to fulfill at some point in the future.

Rice spoke Saturday for the first time in training camp, and the first time since the 25-year-old playmaker tore a ligament in his right knee in Week 4 — an injury that wound up requiring season-ending surgery.

“I’ve completely changed. You have to learn from things like that,” Rice said of the March 2024 accident, when prosecutors said he was driving nearly 120 mph on the North Central Expressway and made “multiple aggressive maneuvers” before striking the other vehicles.

“I’ve learned,” Rice continued, “and taken advantage of being able to learn from something like that.”

Rice pleaded guilty in July to two third-degree felony charges of collision involving serious bodily injury and racing on a highway causing bodily injury. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors said, Rice was sentenced to five years of deferred probation and 30 days in jail, along with paying victims’ out-of-pocket medical expenses totaling about $115,000.

He separately agreed to settle a civil case for $1,086,000, which included prejudgment interest and attorneys’ fees.