Cowboys’ Micah Parsons drops 49ers truth bomb: ‘I don’t think they’ve faced anyone like us’
“The bigger the stage, the bigger the player.”
Those were the words of Micah Parsons as he previewed this Sunday’s playoff meeting with the 49ers to reporters at the The Star in Frisco on Thursday.
And as the Cowboys prepare to step onto a divisional-round stage for the first time since 2018, the buzz around much of the NFL is that they don’t belong in the same spotlight as their opponents in red and gold who are on an 11-game winning streak.
After all, the Niners averaged 365.6 yards per game during the regular season and a punchy 26.5 points per outing.
The Cowboys’ numbers in the same categories: 354.9 and 27.5.
Hey, wait a minute…
But Parsons says he doesn’t mind the naysayers. In fact, he relishes their casual dismissal.
“We hear what everybody’s saying,” he said. “We hear it: ‘No way the Cowboys are going to win, no way.’ Honestly, I think you should feed into it. You should love that stuff. When no one believes in you, that’s the best feeling; not when everyone believes in you and the Kool-Aid is up and everyone’s smiling, like, ‘They can’t lose. They’re too good.’ I don’t want that feeling, because then it’s like, ‘Damn, what if I don’t win?’ When you’re directly at the bottom, you can only go up. I really like being the underdog.”
And with so much talk about the 49ers’ superstars at so many positions- Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, Javon Kinlaw, Dre Greenlaw, Fred Warner- it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the San Francisco juggernaut is going to steamroll the Cowboys right down Lombard Street and clean out of the Bay.
Yes, they’re probably the most talented team that Dallas has lined up against.
“But I don’t think they’ve faced anyone like us yet this year, either,” Parsons pointed out.
That’s not self-hype and bluster. The thing is, he’s right.
Taking a look through the 49ers’ regular-season schedule, there’s an argument to be made that the last legitimately good team they played also gave them their most recent loss.
San Francisco fell to the Kansas City Chiefs on Oct. 23 by a 44-23 score.
Apart from that game, the Niners faced only four other teams all season that made the playoffs, and they’re not exactly a murderer’s row: the 10-7 Chargers, the 9-8 Dolphins, the 8-9 Buccaneers, and the 9-8 Seahawks twice. (They sent Seattle home last weekend after beating them for a third time in the wild-card round.) None of those teams are still alive.
By contrast, Dallas played six teams in 2022 that made the postseason: the aforementioned Bucs, the 13-4 Vikings, the 12-4 Bengals, the 9-8 Jaguars, the 9-7-1 Giants twice, and the 14-3 Eagles twice.
The difference, of course, is that four of those squads are still in the tournament.
Yes, the Cowboys blew more games and looked bad at times. They were completely unprepared on opening night against Tampa Bay. They got pushed around in Philadelphia in Week 6. The overtime losses to Green Bay and Jacksonville were unfortunate. And the season-ender against Washington was an embarrassment.
But every single Cowboys loss this season came against teams who either made the postseason or were right there in the hunt in the season’s final two weeks.
Prior to Week 7, the 49ers also lost to the Falcons, the Broncos, and the Bears.
Blah blah blah.
If you ask Parsons, there’s way too much focus being placed overall on who the other team is that’s sharing the stage.
“I don’t want to go out there and try to outcompete the 49ers. They’re going to beat my ass if I play their game. I’m going to play my game. I’m going to bring my strengths and what I bring to the table. They’re going to bring their strengths. Let’s just battle it out,” he said.
“I think we’re pretty hard to stop ourselves. That’s what we’ve got to focus on: not beating ourselves.”
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