ESPN released future power rankings projecting all 32 NFL teams across roster, coaching, quarterback, and front office categories for the 2027-2029 window. The Green Bay Packers landed as the seventh-best team overall, ranking seventh in roster, quarterback, and front office, then 11th in coaching. A strong showing across the board for a franchise that continues to build toward sustained contention.

But the most exciting takeaway from the exercise had nothing to do with rankings. It was a bold prediction from ESPN’s Seth Walder about edge rusher Micah Parsons that should have Packers fans buzzing.

Parsons and the sack record

While ESPN’s Louis Riddick noted that Parsons’ availability to start the 2026 season remains a concern and that his return from an ACL tear carries some long-term uncertainty, Walder went in the opposite direction with a striking forecast. He predicted that Parsons could break Myles Garrett’s single-season sack record, which Garrett set last season with 23 sacks for the Cleveland Browns. Garrett now plays for the Los Angeles Rams.

“Parsons will break Myles Garrett’s single-season sack record. He has never exceeded 14.0 sacks in a season. But since he entered the league in 2021, he has a 29% career pass rush win rate — much higher than the second-best player, Garrett, at 24.9%. If Garrett can record 23 sacks on the Browns, Parsons can exceed that on a better team in the Packers.” — Seth Walder.

The logic tracks when you examine the numbers, even though it’s a wildly difficult number to achieve. Parsons has made the Pro Bowl in each of his five NFL seasons. He earned first-team All-Pro honors in 2021, 2022, and last season with the Packers, adding a second-team All-Pro nod in 2023. At just 27 years old, he remains one of the premier edge rushers in the league.

The ACL factor

The ACL injury is the obvious variable, and how Parsons returns from it will determine whether a prediction like this has any real chance of materializing. So far, the medical reports coming back to Green Bay have been encouraging. General manager Brian Gutekunst expressed confidence that Parsons’ elite physical profile will accelerate his recovery, calling Parsons a “genetic freak” who should return to the highest level of his game.

Parsons has compiled 65 sacks in five NFL seasons. His best full-season mark came in 2023 with the Dallas Cowboys, when he recorded 14 sacks. Last year in Green Bay, Parsons posted 12.5 sacks in only 14 games. Extrapolating that pace across a full 17-game season would project to roughly 15 sacks. And that’s in his first year playing for a new team.

When Green Bay acquired Parsons via trade last year, the team signed him to a four-year, $186 million extension, making him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. That deal keeps Parsons under contract with the Packers through 2029, aligning perfectly with the future window ESPN is projecting.