Dallas Cowboys superstar Micah Parsons is waging war on ESPN over specific statistic
Dallas Cowboys superstar edge rusher Micah Parsons has been in an intriguing position over the last few years. In each of his first three seasons in the NFL, he's put himself in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year.He's done so with an unrelentless approach to rushing the passer, with a unique skill to […]
Dallas Cowboys superstar edge rusher Micah Parsons has been in an intriguing position over the last few years. In each of his first three seasons in the NFL, he's put himself in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year.
He's done so with an unrelentless approach to rushing the passer, with a unique skill to make everyone around him appear to be playing in slow motion thanks to his jaw-dropping speed. Every week during the regular season, opposing coaches and quarterbacks talk about the challenge that represents game-planning and executing against him.
And yet, Parsons has taken no hardware home, falling short of winning the award to the likes of T.J. Watt, Nick Bosa, and most recently, Myles Garrett. Many analysts will still agree, however, that it's Parsons and Garrett at the top of the game today.
If you ask me, sacks have been Parsons' problem when it comes to winning awards. Whether it's right or not, voters seem to care more about that number than anything else, even if pressures and pass rush win rate, among other metrics are usually more representative numbers. For example, ESPN points out that "(Parsons') 35.3% pass rush win rate is nearly 5 percentage points higher than anyone else." But with fewer sacks than those who have won the awards over him, he's stayed empty handed.
Naturally, Parsons has a bone to pick when it comes to statistics. And as you already know, he's not afraid to take the occasional shot on social media. That's probably why recently, he took aim at ESPN as the website published its edge rusher rankings based on the input of NFL executives, coaches, and scouts. In the list, the Cowboys superstar ranked as the third best but it wasn't the ranking itself that Micah took an issue with.
Instead, Parsons put their numbers in doubt, claiming that "there's no way it was 167 double teams," which is the number ESPN claims to be the highest among edge rushers during the 2023 NFL season. Micah believes it was maybe 500 double-teams in reality.
It's fair to point out that counting double tapes on film can be very open to interpretation, and many analytics websites can have conflicting information because they measure things differently.
Now, if you allow me to give you my opinion, the numbers don't back up Parsons on this one. The reality is 500 double teams appear unrealistic considering Parsons had 513 total pass rushing snaps in 2023, per PFF. No one is double-teamed as much as he is but he isn't double teamed in 97.5% of his pass rushing snaps. He just isn't.
But truth be told, I'm not a fan of criticizing players when they're really hyping themselves up more than anything else. If Parsons wants to say he was double teamed 5,000,000 times last year, let him do it. Whatever works for them in such a competitive environment is fine by me.
Parsons added that him being the most double-teamed player with the highest win rate and the most pressures "doesn't add up" with being considered a player with low production.
Now, that's fair. As I wrote above, the hyper fixation on sacks and sacks alone is an antiquated way of evaluating pass rushers. I'd compare it to how much people love to bring up a quarterbacks' TD/INT ratio when such numbers represent such a low percentage of dropbacks.
I know Parsons catches a lot of criticism (even from teammates) due to how vocal he can be on social media and on his podcast but I gotta hand it to him: I don't believe stats tell the real story and leaving him out of your Top 2 edge rushers feels like a stretch to me, with all due respect to T.J. Watt and others not named Myles Garrett.
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