Micah Parsons says Cowboys winning Super Bowl ‘would mean everything to me,’ feels ‘D’ can be among best ever

With Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowl cornerback Trevon Diggs signing a five-year, $97 million extension, it’s natural for other Dallas players with extension talks looming on the horizon to start thinking about dollar signs. Third-year linebacker Micah Parsons, a First-Team All-Pro selection in each of his first two seasons, is eligible for a new deal after the 2023 season. 

Parsons co-led the NFL in quarterback pressures (90) last season with 2022 Defensive Player of the Year and San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa, while his 13.5 sacks last season ranked as the seventh most in the NFL, five behind Bosa’s league-leading 18.5. That outburst occurred when he lined up like a defensive lineman on 81.1% of his snaps in 2022, according to Pro Football Focus. Even when he was lining up mostly at linebacker as a rookie, 55.2% of the time, per PFF, Parsons still wreaked havoc in opposing backfields, totaling just one-half sack fewer in 2021 (13.0). However, his quarterback pressures total improved significantly from Year 1 when his 67 pressures were tied for the ninth most in the NFL. 

However, beating Bosa for the sacks crown isn’t his 2023 objective. Rather, it’s winning the upcoming Super Bowl in 2023 because he could ask for a blank check following that outcome. 

“I just know if I win this Super Bowl, I don’t have to worry about anything the rest of my life,” Parsons said Friday, via The Athletic. 

On Thursday, Parsons elaborated on the specifics of what he believes would happen if he helped lead a Super Bowl-winning Cowboys defense, especially one after Dallas has failed to reach the conference title game in an NFL-record 12 straight trips. In short, an all-time legacy.

“It would mean everything to me,” Parsons said Thursday on 105.3 FM The Fan, via The Athletic. “I’d break down in tears. When you talk about legacy and talk about leaving a print and a foundation in an organization, I think that’s the most pivotal one. You bring a [Defensive Rookie of the Year] home, you bring a [Defensive Player of the Year] home, that leaves [people saying] ‘He’s a very good player at this organization.’ But you [win] a Super Bowl with an organization [and they say] ‘That’s a guy you remember forever.’ That’s why you guys constantly talk about [Troy] Aikman, you guys talk about Michael Irvin, and those guys were decades ago, but their names still ring bells when you talk about success and winning. I want my name in that conversation.”

In Parsons’ mind, Dallas has a defense that can get the franchise to the mountain top with a legendary performance after the moves made this offseason like re-signing safety Donovan Wilson (three-year, $21 million contract), linebacker Leighton Vander Esch (two-year, $8 million deal) and, of course, trading for the 2019 NFL Defensive Player of the year, cornerback Stephon Gilmore. 

“What do I think this defense can be?'” Parsons asked rhetorically on Friday at training camp out in Oxnard, California. “I think we can be up there with the 49ers‘ great defense (led the NFL in points per game allowed 16.3, in 2022), I think we can be up there with Ray Lewis’ [Baltimore Ravens] defense. I think we can be up there with the [Seattle Seahawks] “Legion of Boom.”

Current Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn helped build the Seattle Seahawks defense that dominated the 2010s and won Super Bowl XLVIII 43-8 over Pro Football Hall Famer Peyton Manning, the 2013 NFL MVP at the time, and his Denver Broncos offense that was the highest-scoring unit in NFL history. Under Quinn’s tutelage, Dallas has been one of the league’s best the last two seasons. 

Cowboys defense under Quinn (since 2021)

“It’s a very fun group to work with because we can keep adding on a little more and adding on a little more because of this connection they have and the versatility they have,” Quinn said Friday, via The Athletic. “There are many people, coaches and players included, that want to prove it. And that’s usually when some of the really competitive moments come, when you have to prove it. There are a lot of guys here that have something to prove, myself included.”  

Acquiring Gilmore, a five-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champion, and 2023 first-round pick Michigan defensive tackle Mazi Smith plugged two of Dallas’ largest defensive areas of need this offseason: No. 2 cornerback and another run-stuffing defensive tackle. 

“The talent we have, the vet guys and the young guys, the experience we all have,” Parsons said, deep in thought. “Since my rookie year, we got thrown into the fire, and we’ve gotten experience from tough games, playoff-level games, and I don’t think there’s a guy on our team that doesn’t have postseason experience outside of the guys that just came in [to the NFL].”  

The 6-foot-3, 245-pound Parsons revealed adding “bulk and weight” has been part of his offseason workout regimen while training in Austin, Texas earlier this offseason. The bulk he’s adding is no more than 10 pounds as he tweeted he doesn’t plan on playing at a weight any heavier than 255 pounds. His goal with the weight gain is to be able to line up at as many as eight different spots along the front seven and perhaps even in the secondary like a slot corner.

“Man, I’m ready to take everybody out into the deep water,” Parsons declared. “Everybody’s comfortable when their knees are in the water, but I’m ready to go out into the deep water and I hope everybody’s prepared to go out into the deep water. In terms of my conditioning and where I’m at, and how I determined how I was gonna get better this year, I think it’s through the roof. I just hope everybody’s ready. You gotta see if they can swim. I’m gonna take them to an island. … “I invest in how I can get better, not in the things I do right already. I invest in my weaknesses. I want to turn them into strengths.”

Having two All-Pro cornerbacks behind him like Diggs, whose 17 interceptions are tied for the most in the NFL since he entered the league in 2020, and Gilmore, one of the best cover cornerbacks in the league, Parsons is prepared to reach new heights in 2023. 

“I told Gilly, ‘Bro, you’re gonna get me three more sacks,'” Parsons said, per DallasCowboys.com. “I just know what kind of player he is, the type of guy that these young guys are trying to be like. I’m excited. Gilly [then] told me, after only two days of practice, ‘Man, I’ve never seen the ball come out that fast.'”

“So I’m like, ‘Bro, that thing is gonna come out hot. I’m telling you. Or they’re done [sacked],” Parsons continued. “It’s over and you won’t have to worry about it, we’re off the field. It’s that type of feedback and intensity that we’re bringing to each other. We just want to see everybody win. There’s gonna be sometimes where I’m like, ‘Bro, you can sit on this.’ That’s just because I know that I’m about to beat this guy, that this guy has no chance. … That type of DB corps? I’ve never had something like this in my career.”

Diggs said he’s already improved by osmosis thanks to Gilmore’s presence, and the two All-Pros haven’t even played a game together yet.

“I feel like he’s [Gilmore] just very professional, just how he goes about his work, it’s like rubbed off on me,” Diggs said Wednesday, via The Athletic. “He’s waking up at 6 o’clock every day. So now I want to wake up at 6 o’clock every day, and go get a workout with him and do all the little stuff like that. He eats perfect. He doesn’t eat foolishness. He has seen me eating gummy snacks and he’ll be like, ‘Why are you eating that?’ Little things like that, him just taking me under his wing and just showing me how to last in the league that long. I’m just taking notes and soaking everything up, and I’m very appreciative for it.”

While their NFC East rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles, are the defending NFC champions, the 24-year-old who has only ever played like an All-Pro feels like the Cowboys can be confident in acting like the conference’s best starting right now. 

“I think we are the top team in the NFC,” Parsons said. “No one can beat you except yourself. You look at our game last year, that’s a game we could have won. We beat ourselves with mistakes and things like that. I think we are the top team when you talk about numbers and experience, guys we got back. I think we’re the only team where we gained players. We didn’t lose a Javon Hargrave (former Eagles DT) and then draft somebody. We have everybody across the board. When you talk about years playing together, years of experience, I think we’re up there to be that better team.”  

The Cowboys and Eagles split their two regular-season matchups in 2022, with each team winning at home when the loser was starting their backup quarterback. Parsons is certainly counting down the days until the teams’ first matchup in 2023, Week 9 up in Philadelphia. The 100 days in between now and then will fly by like Parsons blowing past an offensive lineman — quickly.