Cowboys LB Micah Parsons: ‘Father-son talk’ with Quinn inspired his ‘superpower’ on game-saving tackle

Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons had himself another nice game, if you simply go by the official box score. A sack, a quarterback hit, a forced fumble.

But the play of the day, the one that swung the momentum and changed the course of the game in the 24-6 win by Dallas, went down in the books as just a tackle, one of five Parsons logged versus Detroit.

It was anything but just a tackle.

The second-year phenom was at the 26-yard-line when Lions quarterback Jared Goff let loose a screen pass to tight end Brock Wright. Wright caught the ball at the 21 and raced for the end zone. Parsons stopped on a dime and gave pursuit.

Despite giving up a five-yard head start in a extremely short footrace, the lion caught up to his prey, reaching 20.41 miles per hour at one point. According to Next Gen Stats, it was the fastest speed Parsons has ever hit in a game; he forced Wright out of bounds just inches before the pylon.

The Cowboys would recover a goal-line fumble on the very next play; they went on to retake the lead and eventually ice the game. But without a nearly inhuman effort from Parsons on that second-down play, it’s quite possibly not a Victory Monday at The Star.

“At first, I thought he scored. I thought he rolled in; I didn’t think I made it,” Parsons said at his locker after the game.

And without defensive coordinator Dan Quinn’s one-on-one talk with the 23-year-old late last week, that play might not have happened at all.

“Sitting down with Q this past week, and he was talking to me about plays that I can make if I just use my speed and chase down, just knowing that’s my superpower,” Parsons shared. “We kind of had that father-son talk this week. He challenged me, and I told him, ‘If you challenge me, I’ll never let you down.'”

Quinn called it “the one play that probably nobody is talking about.”

Except for all of Parsons’s teammates, that is, who recognized the moment for exactly what it was.

Guard Zack Martin felt “compelled… to track down Micah Parsons in the postgame locker room and tell the linebacker he made the ‘play of the game,'” as per Michael Gehlken of the Dallas Morning News. “If he doesn’t make that play, they go up 13-10, and it’s an entirely different ballgame.”

Defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence dislodged the ball from Lions rusher Jamaal Williams on the next snap. Dallas recovered, just moments after it looked like Detroit was about to take a sure lead.

“That type of energy goes a long way,” Lawrence said of Parsons’s touchdown-saving tackle. “It is contagious throughout the whole room.”

“It just shows that we’re going to fight,” safety Jayron Kearse told Gehlken. “You’ve got to scratch and crawl for every blade of grass.”

“Ridiculous,” tight end Dalton Schultz called it. “Obviously, he’s a hell of a player.”

“Just relentless effort,” quarterback Dak Prescott remarked. “Our motto this year is resilience. You can just see that; you turn on the film, you see that.”

Turning on the film of Parsons is showing what some thought wouldn’t be possible and what most offensive coordinators prayed couldn’t be true: that 2021’s Defensive Rookie of the Year is getting even better with every game he plays.

“I’m never going to stop,” Parsons matter-of-factly told reporters after his latest jaw-dropping display. “I practice that way, I work that way. Just being relentless, understanding that anything can happen on the field.”

That goes double when Parsons is on it.

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Story originally appeared on Cowboys Wire