Boxing, Ray Lewis, and being smooth: Micah Parsons gets philosophical on Cowboys in ’23
Sometimes, with Micah Parsons, it’s complicated.
There are times when it’s all about him. The Cowboys linebacker worked out away from the team prior to OTAs this offseason, making no secret of the fact that he was trying to add a little additional bulk to his frame to better deal with an increasing number of snaps as an edge rusher.
“I wanted to lean out and just really put on good stuff and get into the best shape of my life,” he told reporters Thursday at The Star. “I just want to create the best version of me. I’m trying to be great.”
Totally and intensely personal.
But in the next breath, the 24-year-old says he’s not terribly concerned with his own individual stats, not even after winning Defensive Rookie of the Year honors in 2021 and garnering Defensive Player of the Year consideration in 2022.
“I’m kind of off the sack wave. I’m on to the impact wave,” he explained. “Like, you see Aaron Donald; he could have 12 sacks, but the impact he makes is so dominant, you can tell. I want to be dominant. And then you see guys who have 16, 17 sacks but they’re not considered ‘a guy.’ I want to be ‘a guy,’ not ‘one of the guys.’ If you’re always chasing, then you’re never achieving.”
And what Parsons wants to achieve in his third pro season is team greatness.
“You just feel it in the room,” he said, speaking on the return this year of so many Cowboys defensive standouts. “Everybody’s like, ‘This has got to be the year.’ Each year I’ve been here, we’ve gone a little bit further, a little bit further. Now I’m hoping we don’t have to [settle for] some small jump to the NFC [championship game] and go home; I’m hoping we go all the way. We all know how each other plays, we know how to communicate with each other. Just like in a relationship: you start from ground zero, you’ve got to learn how to build the basis of how each other works. That history is going to be great. That was the difference for that Ray Lewis [Baltimore Ravens] team: they all came back and were like, ‘If they can’t score, they can’t win.’ I’m hoping we’ve got one of those special teams this year.”
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But the dichotomy is this: for the Cowboys defense to take that next leap as a whole, Parsons is fully aware he needs to be at his own personal best as the leader of the unit.
Just like Donald and Lewis, the all-time legends whose names he casually dropped in one 15-minute Q&A session.
Hence, the extreme measures he took training on his own in Austin just to put on an extra five pounds of muscle. It may not sound like much, but Parsons believes it will tip the scales in his favor on gameday.
“You ever pick up a dumbbell? You pick up a 35, and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is easy.’ Then you go five more pounds and you’re like, ‘Oh, [expletive], my arm!’ It’s like that.”
It’s also why he started incorporating things like boxing into his workouts.
“I got tired of people punching me in my face. I’m a smaller end, and these guys are long. Just learning how to keep my hands up, knocking it down, defending my chest, defending my face, and just being smooth.”
Smooth is a big thing with Parsons these days.
“Smooth is fast. And don’t be fast; be smooth,” he preached. “Because sometimes you feel like you’ve got to do more to win. You’ve got to be smooth. Like, you see track runners look like they’re not moving because they’re smooth. Smooth is fast. And then you see some guy exhausting everything he has. So this year, I’m just focused on being smooth. Everything is smooth.”
Boxing has apparently made a noticeable enough difference to the former first-round pick that he’s gotten teammates and even his defensive coordinator into it, too. Dan Quinn has a history of lacing up the gloves- both in his own fitness regimen and while leading defensive drills- but Parsons says doing his ring routine had the 52-year-old gasping for air.
“Afterward, he said, ‘You know what, Micah? I’m going to trust in your process. You’re going to have a hell of a year this year.’ I was like, ‘You damn right, Q!'”
It’s that personal improvement that the Penn State product is counting on carrying over to the greater entity. Parsons’s success leads to bigger things for the Cowboys… which, in turn, leads to more success for Parsons. And on and on and on, everything working together in a finely-tuned- and oh-so-smooth– dynamo of domination.
Just like a heavyweight boxer.
“You can’t just throw a punch without your legs. You’ve got to have your legs underneath you at all times. Constantly moving, keeping your hands going, keeping them hands off you. I’m trying to take everyone up a level because I’m trying to take this D-line up a level.”
Ding, ding.
