- Joined
- Apr 7, 2013
- Messages
- 120,562
By Bob Sturm 2h ago
We are right in the thick of our draft studies this week as the party has shifted to Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine. Here at the “Sturm 60 HQ,” we are stressing out about how to make 68 prospects fit into 60 spots and figuring that whoever doesn’t make the cut will be more likely to be selected by Dallas. Today, I will get the 24th player fully evaluated.
But, looking back a year ago, we keep running into the report on Micah Parsons. We saw a fantastic prospect but one who didn’t seem like a future Defensive Player of the Year. He seemed a tremendous talent, but nobody on this side of the keyboard could assume he would have more pass-rush snaps in his first six weeks as an NFL player — traditionally a spot where rookies barely even play — than he had in his entire college career.
In other words, his best pitch as an NFL rookie was something he barely offered up at Penn State. Think about that. He was a run-and-hit linebacker at Penn State who the Cowboys proved was not only capable of being one of the best pass rushers in the league but also would be able to do as they played their first game with him in his first season. No development and no time to acclimate and figure out the league. All of what we know as a normal ramp-up of a professional was not used on any level. They threw him out there, and by Week 2 against the Chargers (a performance that seemed worthy of a complete breakdown when it happened), he was the Cowboys’ best defensive player.
That is why we are recognizing the man responsible for this: Dan Quinn.
I know it is a sensitive topic to identify one man who should be praised at the expense of all others in a situation like this. Quinn is just an assistant coach with many superiors he must answer to, such as his head coach, his general manager and the rest of the front office, and whoever else wants to get in Jerry Jones’ ear. Yes, Mike McCarthy and the Joneses could all have vetoed anything any time they wished, but they trusted Quinn to get his guy where he wanted him. They were smart enough not to slow-play this hand. Heck, maybe necessity was again the mother of invention. Either way, once Parsons showed his dominance in Los Angeles, the Cowboys were off to the races and we saw a historic season.
They realized he is most valuable when he’s used where he can be the most valuable. When you’re putting together a team, that can be an uncomfortable place, because you don’t want more undefined variables than you can live with. Perhaps the genius here is that Quinn knew that this particular undefined variable was a weapon.
I am glad you asked, @12staak, because I want to get into that. For years, we have heard the coaches and football minds talk about getting a player into his best position, then letting him learn it. The nuances and the details are so complex and the consequences from opponents so severe if you don’t learn your craft that we cannot ask a young player to do too many things.
And yet, Quinn and Parsons darn near wrecked the league. We knew he would be a great box linebacker, and he was. We knew he could be an excellent blitzing box linebacker, and he was. We didn’t know he would be a great defensive end, too. How is that possible? He had never done it, and it usually takes years to fully learn the details. Teams wouldn’t even try this, let alone commit to it.
What we don’t know is what might have happened if the Cowboys had a fully fit DeMarcus Lawrence and Randy Gregory. Gregory missed five games and Lawrence missed 10, and this allowed the Cowboys to consider their next best options. It is not difficult to say that Parsons is a better option than your fourth or fifth edge rusher, but if Lawrence and Gregory had been around every week, would we have gotten there? Fair question and one with no defined answer.
This is where it gets pretty crazy to consider what the Cowboys pulled off in his rookie season (which alone is ridiculous to consider — not a fifth-year veteran but a rookie at age 22):
• He had 13 sacks. Five players had more, and all were edge rushers and none were rookies (T.J. Watt, Robert Quinn, Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa, Trey Hendrickson), and only one is still on his rookie contract.
• He had 64 quarterback pressures, which was eighth. This stat is far more sustainable and repeatable than sacks, and it shows how often you can beat your man in a pass-rush situation. Maxx Crosby, Aaron Donald, Garrett, Hendrickson, Rashan Gary, Bosa and Shaq Barrett were the only players with more than Parsons. Hendrickson had the lowest number of pass-rushing snaps among that group, 422. Parsons got his 64 pressures in just 286 snaps.
• About those 286 pass-rushing snaps: That was 120th in the NFL, for the sixth-most sacks! And he was a rookie. I cannot overstate how insane this is.
• His 29 QB hits were fifth in the league behind just Watt, Garrett, Bosa and Crosby. Basically, the best of the best. And he had the second-best PFF PR% (according to TruMedia) in the entire sport, with a 22.4 percent win rate, and he trailed only Devin White from Tampa Bay, also a “run and hit” linebacker and not an edge rusher. White had 3 1/2 sacks this season, but the year before he had nine. They are similar players in many respects, but here is where White and Parsons go in different directions, and this may come back to Quinn.
| PLAYER | DL | LB | DB |
|---|---|---|---|
 Micah Parsons | 41% | 55% | 3% |
 Devin White | 3% | 92% | 4% |
As you can see, White is what we thought Parsons would be. A linebacker who blitzes a lot. White played 92 percent of his snaps as a box linebacker. That makes sense and was a logical target for Parsons.
But here is Parsons playing a positional hybrid, in his actual spot only 55 percent of the time and at this all-new spot 41 percent of the time. To make matters crazy, his 41 percent actually out-produced many edge rushers who were playing the edge 100 percent of the time. Sign me up for admitting that this is one of the great personnel upsets I have ever seen.
It again brings us to this: If we are going to get frustrated at the Cowboys for not using Tony Pollard or CeeDee Lamb correctly — a fair assessment, in my estimation, in the playoff loss to San Francisco — then we better shout about the genius idea of making Parsons the solution to every problem. I submit that very few teams would have tried this, and therefore the one team that knew it had this guy on its roster must be given full credit for hitting this home run into the upper deck.
Do the Cowboys do it again? Do they run it back and do everything the same?
I get asked plenty about whether they should make Parsons a full-time edge rusher, and I don’t really see any point in that. But I do see the frustration of knowing you have a guy who can get 13 sacks in fewer than 300 pass rushes the next time the Cowboys can’t generate pass pressure. So what do they do?
This is why I am so pleased Quinn is back. I am not sure you can just assume the next guy will be able to dispatch Parsons as effectively, even if you concede that he was used that way only because of other variables (like the injuries of others). And it’s why I don’t think there is value in defining his role further.
Parsons’ value is that he can play anywhere. In this sport, there is massive value in matchups, and therefore Parsons’ greatest asset is the ability to move around and pick off the weakest prey. If he were exclusively on the edge, he might face off against an elite tackle and be neutralized to some degree. This way, Quinn and Parsons find the one place you’re susceptible and take advantage of it, and that can change from week to week. In fact, it certainly will.
Can you compare Parsons to Lawrence Taylor? Maybe, but trying to tie him to someone from 40 years ago has little value beyond the pride of knowing he is on your team. Quinn tried something last summer that most of us thought impossible. That should not tell us that experimenting with others — gee, I wonder if Trevon Diggs could play wide receiver? — needs to happen. Instead, it should tell us that Quinn and Parsons are on the right track and maybe this will happen for more years to come.
I plan to write plenty about Parsons this offseason, but I think starting here is a great spot. It should teach us to acknowledge what we just don’t know about a player and to appreciate a coach who sees something the rest of us miss. It should also teach us that the Cowboys’ power structure provided us a season to remember because it was willing to do something we thought was a bit crazy — and it worked.
Parsons might be one of one. And if ever there was a guy you should be excited about as a new season looms, he’s that guy.
