It may be difficult to imagine Cowboys linebacker/edge rusher Micah Parsons being even better than he was in his first two NFL seasons.
But that looks to be exactly what’s happened.
Only two padded practices into training camp, and Parsons has not simply picked up where he left off after back-to-back years in the Defensive Player of the Year conversation. He appears to be on a mission to take home the hardware this time around, and he’s apparently starting his campaign in August.
Not content with ramping up to a regular-season level of play, Parsons has already provided several noteworthy highlights in Oxnard. He threw aside eight-time Pro Bowler Tyron Smith on Monday like he was a tackling dummy. Then he harassed Dak Prescott repeatedly on Tuesday, even accidentally bringing No. 4 to the ground on one play after building up a huge head of steam and then being knocked into the quarterback’s legs.
Micah Parsons sack pic.twitter.com/kvptOz3yPW
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 1, 2023
Call it the first unofficial sack of Parsons’s 2023. Once they actually count, he plans to add more. A lot more.
The 13 he tallied as the league’s Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2021 and the 13.5 he followed it up with last season? Those are numbers he compiled on raw athleticism. Pure instinct.
Aiming for a larger total this year, he’s got something extra to go along with it.
“He was already really talented,” Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn told Shan and RJ on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday. “Now he’s getting even more skill to match that. Now you’re seeing this jump that’s taking place. As a young guy coming in, he was super gifted and had great explosiveness, but now his hand use is so much better, his knowledge of what to see is getting better. That’s the thing that has jumped out to me- adding the skill work at the line of scrimmage, especially with his hands to be really used as weapons. He has really made a big jump in that area and I think as the season progresses, people will certainly see that.”
Some of that improvement has come from Parsons’s own offseason workout regimen, which incorporated things like boxing.
But a lot of the knowledge and fine mechanics have come from those who came before him, on both sides of the ball. Apart from taking frequent mentoring from former Cowboys defenders like Charles Haley and new Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware, Parsons has also crossed enemy lines (and the line of scrimmage) to pick the brain of legendary offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth.
“First thing I walked away with was he reminded me of A.D.- Aaron Donald- because of the way he competes every single rep of his workout,” Whitworth said per the Dallas Morning News. “The competition and the energy, most guys don’t do that. Most guys are going through the rhythm until it’s time, going through the motions, then boom- when it’s game time, they play.
“This guy, every rep is a competitive motion and fighting and talking [expletive] and competing. It’s like, man, it reminds me of practices with A.D. every single day, and that’s the only guy I’ve seen that competes that way even in just a workout or a walkthrough or anything else.”
Dear gawd, @MicahhParsons11 pic.twitter.com/oIpoMou29u
— Bobby Belt (@BobbyBeltTX) July 31, 2023
But Whitworth, himself a four-time Pro Bowler, two-time first-team All-Pro and Super Bowl champ, believes Parsons’s star is, incredibly, still on the rise.
“I think from a rush standpoint, he’s still a pretty raw rusher. It’s pretty new to him to be as successful as he is. It’s crazy,” Whitworth said. “As he gets stronger and adds a little more weight, adds more reps as an edge rusher, no telling how good he’ll get.”
The Cowboys assumed they were getting a great player when they drafted Parsons out of Penn State in the first round in 2021. But even Quinn admits that the 24-year-old has delivered far more than expected.
“We didn’t see the evidence that it would be like it is now,” Quinn confessed, “but what we did see is this guy would be a real pressure player. We’d bring him off the edge, we’d blitz him a lot because he had those traits to do that. He took that and elevated it up again. It’s beating somebody to the punch- that’s where he can really get on you, when he’s getting off the ball or blitzing, he can just get on you so quickly. You can feel that stress as the blocker.”
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Right now, it’s guys in the same-colored jerseys who are feeling that stress. Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called Parsons “a cheat code” who has “ruined practice for the offense every day” so far in Oxnard.
Head coach Mike McCarthy has even had some trouble getting going as the team’s new offensive playcaller with Parsons lined up opposite. He was understated when describing the challenge to reporters this week.
“He’s very impactful,” the coach explained. “Just talking with him a bit afterward, he said, ‘I’ll be better tomorrow.’ The offensive side of me said, ‘Hell, I hope not.'”
But soon enough, Parsons and the Cowboys will be able to unleash those improved skills on the rest of the league.
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