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Football

The NFL Has Never Seen a Player Like Micah Parsons

A reminder of how special this whole experience is.
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The 23-year-old is unlike anyone who has come before him. Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports

Certain phenomena are so bewildering to witness that they can only be described using the most extreme hyperbole. I know this because I work in sports talk radio, which means I have to be among the top one percent of the world’s population in the “prone to hyperbole” category. It’s annoying. I try to avoid it. Oftentimes, I can’t. 

But every now and again, you get a rare occurrence when the hyperbole is totally and completely justified. Anything short of something that sounds insane just won’t work. You just have to say it. So I will.

The NFL has never seen a player like Micah Parsons. 

Last December, I made the case that he was having the best rookie season rushing the passer in the last two decades. I know because Pro Football Focus keeps 20 years of pass rush pressure data (rather than just considering raw sack totals, which are more prone to flukey fluctuations), so I went through all 20 seasons and found this:

“In the past 20 seasons, 275 rookies have clocked as many pass-rush snaps as Parsons has this season. Per PRP (pass rushing productivity), again, he ranks … first. The next rookie seasons on that list from 2001-2021 were, in order, Aldon Smith, Joey Bosa, Nick Bosa, Carl Lawson, and Von Miller. Combined number of Pro Bowls so far: 13. There are only six players categorized as linebackers when we use the 20-year sample.”

He became the NFL’s Defensive Rookie of the Year, which was deserved but only says so much since they give one of those to someone every year. Parsons was different. I believe he was one of the best rookie defensive players in league history and absolutely the best rookie pass rusher ever. 

Except he only spent 40 percent of his snaps lined up as a pass rusher. He produced among the all-time greats while treating one of the most difficult positions in the NFL as a side hustle. And even this was dramatically more than what he did at Penn State, where he spent his time as a middle linebacker. He was in high school the last time he rushed the passer full time.

All of which meant that there was plenty of room for growth once the Cowboys started using him on the edge more often. And they have. This season, he has lined up outside on 60 percent of his snaps. In five of Dallas’ 11 games thus far, Parsons’ snap count in the box was in single digits.

So let’s check up on his productivity this season. Short version, it’s what you think it is: Parsons is second to only Green Bay’s Rashan Gary in pressure rate and second to only New England’s Matthew Judon in sacks (among 117 qualified players with at least 200 pass rush snaps, per PFF). If we combine his rookie year and this season, he jumps to first in pressure rate over the last two seasons. He is the best, most consistent defender in the league in terms of destroying the pocket and harassing the opposing quarterback.

Those stats are unlikely to surprise you; at this point, they are commonly cited during the broadcast of most Cowboys games. But I wanted to look into something else we hear mentioned so often with regard to Parsons—his versatility. We know Dan Quinn will line him up all over the front seven. We know Parsons relishes the challenge. We see him coming from all directions every week. How, though, does he compare to his contemporaries in that regard?

I looked at the position alignments for the top 10 pass rushers in the league this year by pressure rate. I found the position they lined up in most frequently and noted the percentage of their total snaps in which that’s the spot they played. For pass rushers, this comes down to four spots: Left Outside Linebacker, Right Outside Linebacker, Left End Over, and Right End Over. Here’s what I found (I included a fun fourth column which I’ll explain in a moment):

Each of the other nine lines up in the same spot more often than Parsons does. This certainly creates mismatches and advantages for Quinn’s defense. It also asks a ton out of Parsons game to game, drive to drive, snap to snap. 

The fourth, mystery column is the number of snaps each player has lined up in the box. Nine of these 10 players hardly do it because they are conventional regular pass rushers. They are humans—freakishly talented and athletic humans, but humans all the same. 

Parsons, on the other hand, might be a cyborg. He does what all of those players do better than they do it while also having to regularly defend inside runs and drop in coverage. That is why Parsons has played roughly 100 more snaps this season than the average of the rest of those on this list. Pass rushers typically need regular breaks because it might be the most physically demanding position in the game. Your job, on every snap, is to relentlessly attack a mountain of a man (who is, quite often, also pretty quick) until the ball is out or the quarterback is on his back. Yet on plays where most elite pass rushers are grabbing a quick breather, Micah is in the middle of the defense. 

And that is why I say, again: the NFL has never seen a player like Micah Parsons. It would be one (amazing) thing if he were just the most productive pass rusher the league has ever seen through his first two years. It would be another (amazing) thing if he were just a very good pass rusher who also moved back inside with regularity to display his versatility. 

Somehow, he’s doing both. His pass rush snaps are almost a 50/50 split between the left and right side. His box snaps are almost even between left, middle, and right linebacker. 

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. With linebacker Anthony Barr out in the loss to Green Bay, Parsons played his fewest number of snaps at edge and most number of snaps at linebacker. By a lot, in both categories. There is this debate about whether or not Parsons’ role should drastically change based on the style of offense Dallas is defending. Should it change significantly based on who is unavailable for the defense? 

The emergence of rookie linebacker Damone Clarke (in Barr’s absence) over the past two weeks may have alleviated some of this anxiety over needing to plug a hole inside. In my view, Dallas should dictate the terms of engagement; Dallas should be the one who knocks. My preference would be that every game, Quinn deploys Parsons in a multitude of ways—regardless of the opponent. He is the most unpredictable defender in the game, and he should be used as such. More often than not, he has been.

One team has slowed him down better than others this season. Philadelphia had an exceptional plan for neutralizing Parsons: leave him unblocked, read him in space, and go where he isn’t so that any decision he makes is the wrong one. And the Eagles are currently very, very good at doing this. But you don’t take on as much as Parsons has and continue to succeed without being an incredibly intelligent individual. He is the “dual-threat quarterback” of modern NFL defense. There are a ton of reasons to look forward to the Christmas Eve game versus Philly, but Parsons and Quinn versus the Eagles offense is undoubtedly the element I’m most excited to see play out. 

It appears as if the Eagles will be here for a while. If that is the case, there has never been another player you would rather try to stop them than Parsons. Because it’s hard to game plan against something you’ve never been before—and maybe will never see again.

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Jake Kemp

Jake Kemp

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Jake Kemp covers the Cowboys and Mavericks for StrongSide. He is a lifelong Dallas sports fan who previously worked for…

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