You can wrap up any voting for the NFL’s 2021 Defensive Rookie of the Year, because Cowboys edge-demolisher and off-ball specialist Micah Parsons has that on lock. We’re past asking whether the Penn State alum is the league’s best defensive rookie. We are now asking whether Parsons has become the NFL’s best and most impactful defensive player, regardless of position or experience.
There is a legitimate case to be made, especially in the second half of the season. Since Week 9, Parsons leads the league in sacks (7.5), total pressures (26), and stops (20), and he’s done it at multiple positions. Per Pro Football Focus, Parsons has played 304 snaps this season on the defensive line, 360 in the box as an off-ball linebacker, 13 in the slot, six at outside cornerback (!), and one at free safety. There isn’t much Parsons can’t do, and what he can do, he’s doing at levels we have no right to expect from a rookie. There are very few players who can dominate at two levels of a defense at any given time, and Parsons has been doing it all season.
The NFL’s November Defensive Rookie of the Month came into his first December game, a Thursday-nighter against the Saints, with apparently more to prove. He’d come off a one-sack, 10-pressure, five-stop performance against the Raiders on Thanksgiving night that showed him as virtually unstoppable against Derek Carr and company, but his game against New Orleans may have been even more impressive. Parsons had another sack, five pressures, two stops, and no catches allowed on two targets.
“I feel like the more the season went on, you could see his speed start coming alive in the games,” end DeMarcus Lawrence recently said. “He’s a fast player, excellent instincts, he’s a go-getter. He’s the lone lion.”
Perhaps most interesting is how defensive coordinator Dan Quinn can deploy Parsons from week to week. Against the Raiders, Parsons lined up 73 times on the line, and four times in the box. Against the Saints, it was 12 snaps on the line, 50 in the box, and three in the slot. You don’t expect a 6-foot-3, 245-pound guy to make impact plays in the slot, either… but as we will see, Micah Parsons is no ordinary dude. For a rookie to excel in this many roles is… well, let’s just say it’s somewhere between exceedingly rare and completely unprecedented.