FRISCO, Texas -- Last week, Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons claimed he would "just eat the fine" associated with skipping NFL-mandated media availabilities.
On the cusp of being hit with said fine, Parsons appeared at his Thursday availability. When asked if he missed the media, he flipped the question around.
"Ah, man, did y'all miss me? I think it's the other way around," Parsons said. "I give all y'all feed. Y'all need me. I see y'all s---. Y'all s--- blow up a little bit more. I'm trying to get you Twitter paid. Y'all Twitter premium?"
He also almost broke out his own Marshawn Lynch impression when asked why he showed up in the locker room during media availability on Thursday.
"I'm happy. I'm in a good place. I love my kids. I love my life. I'm just happy," Parsons said.
The reason Parsons initially spoke about "eating the fine" was because of his comments about Mike McCarthy's job status that sounded like he was bashing his head coach, who is in the final season of his contract. Parsons intended to say he felt for players like lineman Zack Martin more than McCarthy during Dallas' 3-6 start to the year. In the future, he said he will be more careful about what he says.
"When I'm talking about here, I'm thinking the Dallas Cowboys," Parsons said. "I have no reference. I was in middle school, elementary school when Mike McCarthy was with the Packers, and I have no reference to that. So obviously no disrespect to his career and what he's made for himself as one of the most winningest coaches. I could have done better. I was angry and I just didn't finish and I wasn't as thoughtful as I usually am. I didn't think people would take that context the way it was. That's on me. I wanted to hurry up out of the locker room. Next time I will be very careful about what I say. So that's my apologies."
Having learned his lesson, he sidestepped the question about wanting McCarthy back in 2025.
"Like I said, that's above my pay grade also," Parsons said. "Mike McCarthy's always been good to me. He's always been a good coach. He won me a lot of games in here, and I had a lot of success with him. The coaching stuff, I can't really control that. You ask me the same thing about Dan [Quinn]. If someone offers Dan a lot more money, where he going? There's better opportunity. It's an opportunists' business. You see it in players. You see it in coaches. It kind of is what it is. You don't really have a thought. You don't really control anything."
The three-time All-Pro then dove into a variety of topics ranging from going against his former DC Quinn, how he views the Cowboys' down year and the challenge new Dallas defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer is pushing him to accomplish.
Parsons ready to go '12 rounds' with Dan Quinn
Parsons may have the closest relationship of any Dallas Cowboys player to former defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, now the head coach of the Washington Commanders, Dallas' Week 12 opponent. Quinn's arrival in Dallas as its DC coincided with Parsons being selected 12th overall by the Cowboys out of Penn State in the 2021 NFL Draft. Under Quinn's guidance, he joined Hall of Famer Reggie White as the only players since sacks were officially tracked as a statistic (since 1982) to have 13 or more sacks in each of their first three seasons.
Quinn called Parsons "super important" to the success of Dallas' defenses. Quinn even hooked up Parsons' family in Pennsylvania with tickets for Sunday afternoon's game in Landover, Maryland.
"Me and Q still talk to this day," Parsons said. "He shoots me texts every week or two. More frequently recently. Maybe he's trying to get in my head a little bit. He actually helped me get tickets to the game, too, for my family. That goes to show you what type of coach DQ is and [the] type of players' coach he is regardless of whether you're playing for him and things like that. He's always about his guys. And that's my guy, So it's going to be fun playing against him."
Parsons revealed that he already knows what Quinn's message will be to his Commanders squad as he looks to beat his former team. Parsons, who regularly utilizes boxing training in the offseason, is looking to be the aggressor and get the best of his former mentor.
"I know he's going to have them rallied up," Parsons said. "He's probably going to say, 'It's Shark Week. It's Fight Night. We got to go to Round 12. We got to knock them out. Rivalry game.' I know his whole spiel, but I'm [MMA fighter] Tommy Jones tonight. That's how I'm looking at it. I'm Floyd [Mayweather] this week. So it's going to be a fun game."
Seeing similarities between 2024 Cowboys, 2021 Lions
The success of the Detroit Lions across the last four seasons makes them the league's current rebuild role models. Parsons likened Dallas being 3-7 to Detroit going 3-13-1 in 2021. That Lions team went 11-6 against the spread that season, the third-best mark in the entire NFL. Six of their nine losses that season were by one possession, and three of the Cowboys' seven losses in 2024 have been by one score.
"It's just how the cards turn," Parsons said of the Cowboys' injury luck and down year. "It reminds me of Detroit, three years ago when they were in every game but somehow ended up losing or they lost by three."
No defense has taken a bigger step back from 2023 to 2024 than the Cowboys. There are a multitude of factors for the decline from Quinn to Zimmer beyond just the scheme change like decreased depth thanks to owner/general manager Jerry Jones' roster management and a litany of injuries to key contributors like cornerback DaRon Bland (foot stress fracture, zero games played), edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence (foot injury, six games missed) and Parsons himself (high ankle sprain, four games missed).
| Scoring defenses | Cowboys | Commanders |
|---|---|---|
2023 PPG Allowed | 18.5 (5th) | 30.5 (Worst) |
2024 PPG Allowed | 29.3 (31st) | 22.1 (14th) |
PPG Allowed Differential | +10.8 (Worst) | -8.4 (2nd-best) |
He sees growth among his teammates and the defense with that unit putting up a better fight on a week-to-week basis despite the overall defensive drop off.
"Overall, we're playing better. We're not playing great yet. But we're playing better. It's night and day the difference on how that defensive line is playing, how the linebackers are playing," Parsons said. "People are getting experience. I know with some of these young guys getting the opportunity, they're getting better. ... By the end of this year, y'all are going to say [defensive coordinator] Mike Zimmer didn't have all his pieces but we sure did put a damn good defense together."
Zimmer's leadership challenge for Parsons
Parsons has always produced on the field since entering the NFL, but Zimmer is challenging him to be the defense's light as a leader with more than just his on-field actions. The 25-year-old is likely being asked to pour even more into his younger teammates. This past offseason, Parsons opted to skip the bulk of the Cowboys offseason program and work on his own away from the facility, calling it "my style."
"I'm learning how to lead differently. I'm learning how to become a better leader," Parsons said. "It's challenging in these dark times. It's easy when we were always winning. It didn't matter who stepped up and who was the light. You were able to just kind of sit back and just watch everything, but now in the [down] times, people are looking at me. You know Zim's talking to me about my leadership and how I need to be better, and I love that stuff because you know it bothers me when I feel like a coach is upset at me. He gave me a challenge, and I'm going to live up to that challenge."
It was easy for Parsons to accept Zimmer's critique is because of his work with Hall of Famer Deion Sanders in Dallas and Houston Texans four-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Danielle Hunter, who Zimmer developed with the Minnesota Vikings. Time will tell if Parsons' leadership will play long-term dividends in Dallas.
"I wouldn't say he [Zimmer] was disappointed, but he always tells me stories about the great players he had. He tells me how I could be one of the best players he had, and the things that I have to do and how I got to scratch for every inch of the game I can take from it," Parsons said. ... "He's taking [a different approach] because a lot of coaches [are] like, 'man, I don't care. This guy's talented. He does enough.' But when you got a guy that's willing to say, 'hey man, like I don't want that for you. I want better for you.' Then yeah, I'm always going to take that in. It would make me upset and do myself a disservice if I didn't appreciate that."