Cowboys’ Micah Parsons wants to be ‘one of the greatest Hall of Famers,’ provides his own best NFL comparison

Many NFL players in training camp this time of year use to the trope of “I’m in the best shape of my life.” However, Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons, who has earned two First-Team All-Pro selections in his only two years in the league, took it even further. Parsons has cranked up his offseason work the last several months, which has him feeling like he could play the equivalent of two NFL games in one right now. 

“Yeah, I’m ready to go right now man,” Parsons said at Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California on Saturday. “With my training coming in here, I was already game-ready. A lot of guys might wait until camp and go through the motions to ramp up and get ready, but my mindset this year was like ‘I want to be so far ahead of everybody so by the time camp comes around, I’m in midseason form and ready to dominate.'”

Parsons’ targets for improvement in his offseason work are centered on becoming a more technically-sound pass rusher.

“My hands, my footwork, my eyes, what I’m looking at: everything is much more clear,” he said. “Experience is playing a large part too. It’s just the reps of what I want to be really good at. The conditioning and the tempo of it all, that’s the key part…. I could play like seven or eight quarters. I could play two games if I have to.”

The key part of Parsons’ improvement with his offseason training in those technical areas he referenced was a simple one that underscores the gladiator-like nature of the violent sport he plays.

“Definitely the violence,” Parsons said when asked what part of his training is key in implementing upgrades to his game. “Coming off blocks and being on top of blocks. Showing people that I can be an every-down player no matter what it is: run, pass, or play-action. I really want to show people that I’m here. Training in that is just coming off and being explosive. Playing with the hands a lot through a lot of boxing. Believe or not, air-fighting. I’ll be in the mirror boxing with myself at home. Shadow boxing. Throwing around weights with my hands. When you talk about violence with the hands, I’m going to continue that into the season with my condition and how my hands feel. I would recommend that to anybody who wants to come in here.”

Another part of his training, some of which occurred down in Austin, Texas earlier this summer, was centered around adding weight, running his stature from 6-foot-3, 245 pounds to closer to 255 pounds. 

“Basically, I looked at where I was at, and then where I wanted to be, but a lot of it is like… I don’t think anyone in here would deny that I’m a special player,” Parsons said. “I believe that you need your own plan. You need your own unique way to get you to where you want to be. No knock against anybody, but there are certain things I need to be doing that someone else can offer me better and enhance things that need to be enhanced. I felt like I needed to separate myself dialing up that focus and bringing that determination. Really just isolating myself and getting away from everybody to show people that I was going to come back and be the best player that I can be.”

Parsons skipped some of the earlier portion of the Cowboys’ offseason program in order to go pursue some of that training, but he feels his efforts are validated because of defensive coordinator Dan Quinn’s faith in him.

“It was kind of like a leap of faith,” Parsons said when talking about the team being OK with him training on his own earlier in the spring. “Q [Dan Quinn] was like ‘I know you’re a dog competitor, but when you come back, you have to show that you’re in the right place.’ Each time I came back I was a little bit better and eventually he was like ‘I trust you and that you’re going to get after it.’ He came to visit me and work out with me. He knew I was working my butt off to push it to the limit. He had the confidence knowing I would be in a place where I needed to be… Q sent me this quote: ‘You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to do it. Life is about choices.’ No one is making me play football or go to workouts. You truly have to love this stuff bro. 

“No one wants to wake up at five in the morning. You have to love it to wake up at five in the morning. No one is forcing me to do this. I’m doing this to pursue greatness and chase perfection in myself. Not everyone has that mentality. That’s why talent doesn’t always win…For what I want, I know the mindset needed for what I want to do.”

All of this work is in pursuit of his ultimate goal: becoming of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s greats and being in the V.I.P’s V.I.P. section in Canton, Ohio. 

“I have a testimony of where I want to be with my faith and God, and when you talk about great careers, you talk about the Hall of Fame,” Parsons said. “I don’t think I just want to make the Hall of Fame, I want to be known as one of the greatest Hall of Famers. There’s categories to everything. There’s good, there’s great, and there’s like perfect. … When you talk about me, I don’t want to just be mentioned in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, that’s a great accolade, but I want to be one of the greatest in the Hall of Fame.”  

His training and laser-focused mindset of being one of the Hall of Fame’s greats down the line has been evident throughout camp, especially on reps like the one below where he blew past Cowboys 32-year-old left tackle Tyron Smith — an eight-time Pro Bowler, two-time First-Team All-Pro and member of the 2010’s All-Decade team — for what would have been a sack of quarterback Dak Prescott. Another indicator of Parsons’ high-level career ceiling that he’s pushing extremely hard to reach. 

“I just want people to know Tyron is really still great, but there comes a time in your career where like, not talking about Tyron, this is me talking about my career, where I feel like… Tyron is intimating bro,” Parsons said. “When I was going against Tyron my rookie year as one of the first [NFL] left tackles I ever went against, I was like ‘Man this guy is hard to beat.’ I didn’t understand what I was doing and how I wanted to set him up. I learned from him, and I learned from all of that. At Tyron’s age now, I’ve got him figured out. Not everyone is going to figure him out, but I’ve been practicing against him for three years now. I know how Tyron wants to get me and exactly how he wants to touch me. I know how he wants to set me up and not everyone can do that. That’s also just me getting better and learning how to pass rush now, not that Tyron is not great.”

Simply having the experience to “know what he is doing” entering his third NFL season could lend Parsons, who co-led the NFL in quarterback pressures (90) last season with the San Francisco 49ers‘ Nick Bosa — the 2022 NFL Defensive Player of the Year — and recorded 13.5 sacks last season, which ranked seventh-most in the league, a tremendous helping hand in his development. 

“Now I know what I’m doing,” Parsons said. “That’s going to make a real big difference. Even last year, I would start at linebacker and then they would bump me back down again [to defensive line], and I’m trying to learn a position during the year. This is the first year where I know my keys, I know my reads, and I fully know every position on the field. I have moves A, B, and C as a pass-rusher, and it’s all based on feel of what the guy across from me is giving… You have to feel and understand the game, how they want to slow you down. My tool box is wide open.”

Parsons began his career in 2021 as more of a traditional inside linebacker, lining up in that spot just over 55% of the time according to Pro Football Focus, but last season he morphed into a true pass-rusher along the edge of the defensive line to best accentuate his skillset in the Cowboys’ top-five scoring defense. 

Micah Parsons’ career defensive snap alignment

*Data according to Pro Football Focus

His versatility is such that Parsons himself likens to two of the NFL’s all-time, greatest defenders who played a similar styles at the linebacker/edge rusher position: Pro Football Hall of Famers Lawrence Taylor and Derrick Brooks. 

“I would definitely say I’m a positionless platyer,” Parsons said. “The comparisons [of Lawrence Taylor] to me don’t really make sense. I don’t know that LT [Lawrence Taylor] could guard a Chase Edmonds, a Dalvin Cook, or a Saquon Barkley [in coverage]. I think I can. There’s [San Francisco 49ers All-Pro inside linebacker] Fred Warner [today]. The only player I can say was dominant on both sides [as an inside linebacker and pass-rusher] is Derrick Brooks. I don’t think he’s talked about enough. Derrick Brooks to me is one of the greatest players to ever play in the NFL when you talk about coverage, sacks, and things like that. I don’t think he’s talked about in that way.”

However, in order to earn those comparisons fully, he knows he needs to produce a signature, “legendary” season.   

“To me, a guy like Lawrence Taylor, Jerry Rice, Prime Time [Deion Sanders], Michael Strahan: they all had a legendary seasons,” Parsons said. “They all had a legendary thing about them: broken records and setting the tone of what it meant to be a prime time  defender or offensive player. They really set the tone of what it meant to be great and separate themselves from others. They all had their own swag. When we talk about who had the records, Strahan set the record for the most sacks in a year [22.5 in 2001]. Prime Time, any time the ball was in the air, it was his. Everyone got something about them, and when we talk of the greatest we talk about those guys and how dominant of a force they were. Aaron Donald is going to have the same thing.” 

On top of just having a legendary individual season or career, Parsons knows he needs to do something with the Cowboys that the franchise hasn’t accomplished since the 1995 NFL season, four years before he was born: win the Super Bowl. All of the players he mentioned above possess that rare piece jewelry. 

“There are people that have great careers, but without that Super Bowl… the Super Bowl carries so much weight,” Parsons said. “You talk about championships. Why do people say [Michael] Jordan was the greatest? Six-and-oh [in the NBA Finals]. If LeBron [James] went 10-0 in the NBA Finals, there would be no arguing. Those rings and those moments when your best player steps up, leads and carries everyone around you, there’s no better moment, in any sport no matter what it is. Everyone comes in for the finals. Everyone comes in for the Super Bowl because that’s the most important moment in life.”