Michael Irvin is never short on words, but what he won't tolerate is someone twisting them. The Dallas Cowboys legend set off a firestorm of speculation recently when he spoke with WEEI in Boston and was posed the question of if the team would entertain trading Dak Prescott and signing Tom Brady in free agency. Irvin's response was mostly innocuous on its face, but it left room for some to interpret it the wrong way. 

"I'm just telling you right now, at the Super Bowl in Miami, some very significant people that I had some conversations [with were] leaning in that same direction," he said. "It was shocking. I had a vodka cranberry in my hand and when they said it to me, I put the drink down and said, 'Let's talk a little bit more about this.' I promise you, I had a conversation with people -- I can't tell you who -- about that same scenario going down. 

"And I was like, 'I just don't know if there's a real possibility of that happening.'"

For the record -- as multiple sources continually affirm to CBS Sports -- it's not going to happen and, furthermore, was never once a topic of discussion.

The Cowboys and new head coach Mike McCarthy are legitimately all-in on keeping Prescott for the longterm and while that may include activating the franchise tag to buy themselves more time to get the deal done, they'd like to avoid having to use the tag altogether -- both sides hoping to get a deal done prior to the NFL tag deadline of March 10. If nothing lands, the tag will be invoked as a placeholder, and Prescott will likely hold off on reporting to offseason conditioning until his new contract is in place. 

Team owner Jerry Jones is on fire with urgency to get the deal done pronto, and so is team exec Stephen Jones, the latter making it clear "things are fixing to heat up" when it comes to talks to get a deal nailed down quickly. Expected leveraging aside, the looming extension will inevitably land, and Brady will not suit up for the Cowboys in 2020 -- or ever. 

Nonetheless, some read Irvin's citing of "significant people" and attempted to put two and two together, assuming those "people" were within the Cowboys organization. Although their math didn't add up to the number four, they ran with the story anyway, and the Hall of Famer was thrust into a maelstrom he has since been forced to climb out of. And in doing so, he basically took a flamethrower to any and all who mischaracterized what he said. 

Irvin doesn't want to hear anything about him supposedly "walking back" or "clarifying" his original comments because, as he puts it, he never once said the Cowboys had discussed or even entertained the notion of moving on from Prescott to grab Brady -- even if that's what people pretended he said to give their fingers something to do (or to drive headline clicks). 

"I didn't clarify anything," a frustrated Irvin told 105.3FM the Fan. "I don't have to clarify. What I said was what I said. I said I talked to significant people. 

"That means people that are in the know about these kinds of situations. Now, I didn't say I talked to Jerry [Jones]. So, what I don't like is when I said it exactly like I said and then people come out saying in the article, 'Well, Michael talked to people in the Cowboys organization.' I never said I talked to anybody in the Cowboys organization. 

"So when the article comes back out saying Michael's walking back, I'm not walking back anything. You guys wrote me wrong. So don't put it on me like I did something wrong when you didn't do your work."

Mic drop.