Parsons’ Game in Rare Air
Micah Parsons is like few that have ever played the game of football.
He has that rare combination of size, speed, skill, intelligence and mental toughness.
The first four make great NFL players.
The first four, plus the last one, make Hall of Fame NFL players.
But when you add DRIVE to those five, you get players in the G.O.A.T. conversation.
At linebacker, very few have the first five, even less have all six.
Parsons is all drive. Being the greatest football player to every play motivates him by the minute. It motivates him in everything he does during the season and offseason.
He’s not afraid to tell you that he strives to be the greatest.
Of the few with all six of the attributes above, nobody has exemplified them better, especially drive, than Lawrence Taylor.
It’s been a minute since Taylor was wreaking havoc on NFL offenses. 30 years since he was yelling “let’s go out there like a bunch of crazed dogs,” at his teammates.
On the field, he was like nobody else, and the NFL Gods have made us wait to get another.
Oh yea, they’ve teased us along the way with guys like Jason Taylor, Julius Peppers, Derrick Thomas and Jared Allen, but nobody was quite the player LT was in his prime.
But there’s a new Lion on the prowl. One that also exemplifies the six attributes that made Taylor the greatest to ever hunt quarterbacks.
Now in just his third season, Parsons has 29.5 sacks in 35 starts, or 0.84 sacks per game. LT averaged 0.73 sacks per game over his 13 seasons.
What’s not in the stat sheet for both guys, is the way they disrupt an offense. Even when not making a tackle, hit or sack, Parsons, like LT before him, regularly make it hard for offenses to get into any kind of rhythm. He’s able to take teams out of their offensive game plans in a hurry.
Teams have a hard time figuring out where he’s coming from. Parsons lines up all over the defensive front. He comes on blitzes from the outside or stunts to the inside. He has the strength to move offensive lineman wherever he wants and do it in a split second.
In the season opener, Parsons sacked Giants QB Daniel Jones on the third play of their first drive of the game to set the tone and send a message. It worked.
In Week 2, Parsons sacked Jets QB Zach Wilson on the third play of their first drive. It set the tone and sent a message that he was going to be a problem all day. It worked.
He had two sacks, a pressure that caused Wilson to throw an interception and a fumble recovery on a strip of Dalvin Cook from behind after refusing to give up on the play.
The drive, the want to, the mental fortitude are all things great players have in common, but only a select few can pull it out and use it to dominate every minute of every day.
I haven’t been this excited about one single defensive football player in the NFL since Derrick Thomas was wrecking game plans for the Chiefs.
The football Gods gave us lovers of defensive football a gift on May 26, 1999.
Micah Aaron Parsons – a legend in the making.