Micah Parsons feasted on quarterbacks as a rookie. But he’s coming back in his second season hungry for even more.
The reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year finished the 2021 season with 13 sacks, far surpassing the old Cowboys franchise record for a first-year player. He even came close to setting a new rookie mark for the entire league, but landing on the COVID-19 list for the team’s regular-season finale prevented him from the attempt.
Now entering his second season, the just-turned-23-year-old linebacker has set his sights even higher.
“Yeah, 15’s like the minimum,” Parsons told Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports recently. “Fifteen’s what I wanna hit. But definitely 23 is that goal, to break the record.”
Fifteen sacks last year would have broken the recognized rookie mark, 14.5, set by the Titans’ Jevon Kearse (coincidentally, the uncle of current Cowboys safety Jayron Kearse) in 1999.
Twenty-three sacks would top what Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt was able to do last year when he racked up 22.5. That feat- at least in the official record books- tied Michael Strahan’s 2001 effort (although most observers would say Strahan’s total comes with a big fat asterisk, as Brett Favre seemed to take a dive in their season finale to gift his friend the title).
Parsons will have a harder time in his sophomore season. He’s not a surprise any longer, for one. Teams know he could line up at either linebacker or defensive end and be equally effective. Opposing offenses have a full year’s worth of tape to use in creating blocking schemes to combat him.
The former first-round draft pick himself knows that much will be new in 2022, including the quarterbacks he’ll be seeing most often right in the NFC East.
“None of them’s too easy. It’s really hard,” Parsons said when asked to compare the Cowboys’ rival passers. “Never touched Daniel Jones; I think he got hurt our game, and he didn’t even play at all after that. And then [Carson] Wentz, I never played him. We touched [Jalen] Hurts a little bit, but I had COVID the last game. These guys are really new to me, to be honest.”
Still, the uber-confident Parsons isn’t worried about matching anyone else’s expectations of him based off what he put on the field last year.
“I just take the blessings that God gave me. I don’t feel like I need to reach anyone’s expectations but my own. If I can live with it, I can deal with it. I’m gonna just go out there and play my game. I don’t wanna go out there and chase no one’s story. I just gotta do my thing, and that’s what got me here, and that’s what I’m gonna keep doing.”
He says he doesn’t want to chase anyone’s story, but he wouldn’t mind grabbing some of that interception spotlight from teammate Trevon Diggs.
“I told Tre I might lead the team in picks this year,” Parsons joked. “We don’t got no money on it, but I’ve been really practicing my hands this year to get my hands on a couple picks this year.”
All that, of course, while he’s working to get his hands on a record number of quarterbacks.
Technically speaking, though, 23 sacks would only give Parsons a share of the true all-time single-season mark. Sacks didn’t become an official NFL stat until 1982. Anything that happened before that is up for debate and a certain amount of interpretation of archival film and old box scores.
According to some sources, like the Pro Football Reference Library, Al Baker of the Detroit Lions tallied 23 sacks in 1978. And he did it as a rookie, giving him two all-time records in one fell swoop.
The Cowboys, unsurprisingly, keep track of their own team records. In-house data maintains that Harvey Martin recorded 23 sacks a year prior, in 1977. (Pro Football Reference disagrees and credits the big defensive end with just 20, which is still absurdly impressive for a 14-game season.)
Those marks are unofficial, but a noted football history buff like Parsons may want to aim for 23.5 sacks this season just to be on the safe side and eliminate all confusion.
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