Micah Parsons was visibly dejected as he sat in the visitors locker room at Lambeau Field following Sunday’s overtime loss to the Packers.
The Cowboys linebacker was clearly upset about the loss in which the defense allowed Green Bay to score the final 17 points of the contest. It marked the 196th time in franchise history the Cowboys had held a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter… but the first time they had ever lost.
Parsons called the collapse “disgusting,” but he also seemed to bracing himself for something bigger and more ominous that he senses could be looming on the horizon in Dallas.
Packers backs Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon combined for over 200 yards on the ground in Week 10, and the Cowboys run defense faces a murderer’s row of running threats for the rest of the regular season. And that has the reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year concerned.
“We’ve just got to be accountable,” Parsons explained to reporters after the 31-28 overtime final. “We’ve got to hold our gaps. We’ve got to come downhill and stop it. It’s going to keep happening until we stop it. Period. We can rush as much as we want, but until we put this flame out, of this running the ball stuff, we’re never going to be as good as we need to be. Period. We’ve got to get better.”
Nine games in, the Cowboys are allowing 143.1 rushing yards per game. Only three teams are posting worse numbers in the category. And after now giving up over 200 rushing yards in back-to-back outings, backs like Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook, the Giants’ Saquon Barley, and Indianapolis’s Jonathan Taylor (the Cowboys’ next three opponents) have to be licking their chops.
The Dallas defense is loaded with highlight-reel stars and physical maulers, but Parsons implies that there’s something else going on within the unit’s larger group dynamic.
“I would take any of these guys any day of the week when it comes to physicality,” said Parsons. “But in terms of being accountable- staying and knowing you’re doing your job- that’s what it is. People think this is an ‘I’ game because certain people splash. This is a ‘we’ thing. It’s not just one person. If he doesn’t get the call, that’s on us. If he doesn’t stunt, whether he does, it’s on us. It’s a ‘we’ thing; we’ve got to depend on everybody to do their job. And if one person’s not doing their job, everything’s in shambles. It’s something that I’m very upset about, and it has to change.”
Exactly what will change before Sunday’s showdown with the 8-1 Vikings is unclear. But Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones has faith in the man who’ll be in charge of implementing it.
“We have complete confidence in Dan Quinn,” Jones told Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan on Monday. “I know that he’s going to continue to grind on it, and certainly we can be better. We have to be better. Obviously, that’s the way teams are going to attack us. How many times do you ever see an Aaron Rodgers game where he throws it 20 and they run it 40? Probably not very often. But we’re probably going to keep seeing that, and I know Dan, he’s the best of the best. I know he’ll keep going back to the drawing board with our players. We’ve got a great group of guys who’ve got a great mentality, a great play temperament.”
Parsons, the unit’s centerpiece, played 95% of the team’s defensive snaps on Sunday and finished the game tied for first among Cowboys in total tackles. He’s admittedly banged up, and had to have his ankle re-taped at one point in Green Bay. But he was still plenty effective, even if he didn’t have any of those splash plays he himself mentioned.
Cowboys LB Micah Parsons said he feels "good enough to play" while battling some ailments. "But that's the nature of the game. I play sideline to sideline. I'm taking on hits from side of me, in front of me, behind me. It's just what people are doing. They're targeting me."
— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) November 14, 2022
It can be argued that Parsons was made easier for the Packers to target because he spent the majority of Sunday at the same position. Rather than frequently moving him up to the defensive line, Quinn left him at linebacker for over 50 of his 61 Week 10 snaps. Covering for the inactive Anthony Barr may have been necessary, but it also seemed to, for all intents and purposes, neutralize Parsons’s best skill.
He rushed the passer just nine times.
“Obviously, when the other team breaks the huddle, they’re looking to find him. But one of the things Dan has been great at is moving him around,” Jones said. “But it was one of those games where they did a good job with him and, as you said, they didn’t throw it many times.
“You just didn’t feel that explosive play [from him], which seems unbelievable, because he seems to do it almost every game.”
Except he didn’t against Green Bay. And, as Parsons himself is so upset about, neither did anybody else on the Cowboys defense.
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