Green Bay Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons has never been shy about speaking his mind. And he's never been shy about the fact that he considers himself the best at what he does. So it's perhaps not surprising that, when speaking to Los Angeles Rams star Myles Garrett on his The Edge podcast, Parsons got a little bit controversial with some of his takes.
Parsons and Garrett had a long, spirited exchange about who is the best at doing what they are both asked to do, and they got into it on several different fronts. You can watch the full clip on Instagram, but here's the back-and-forth trash talk between the two stars:
Parsons: "I still doing things that none of y'all do."
Garrett: "Who is 'none of y'all'?"
Parsons: "You, Will [Anderson Jr.], rest of the league."
Audience member: "[Garrett] just broke the record, though."
Garrett: "Thank you, bro! What are we talking about?"
Parsons: "Yes, that record stands, and we're not taking that away. [But] there's nobody in the league that can line up from left to right and play every position as if they got paid at that position. Facts."
Garrett: "I have a sack at every spot across the line."
Parsons: "You can have a sack at -- I'm talking about truly playing... at my weight."
Garrett: "I can't be 240, bro. I actually gotta set the edge, play the run, get TFLs."
Parsons: "I get those, too."
Garrett: "You got like four in the last two years."
Parsons: "That's cap. That's cap."
Garrett: "A little cap."
Parsons: "That record is only gonna stand but for so long."
Garrett: "It is still currently my time."
Okay, so let's run through these claims.
First, Parsons says that he does things that other guys can't do. That's a bit of a vague claim, but it's worth noting that since he entered the league, Parsons ranks first in the NFL in pressures (409; Garrett is second with 403), according to Tru Media, as well as first among all edge rushers in pressure rate (20.2%) by a significant margin over Anderson (17.5%). Garrett, of course, has turned his pressures into sacks considerably more often (20.5% to 15.9%), which is why he leads the league with 83 sacks since Parsons entered, and Parsons is third behind T.J. Watt (65.5) with 65.
Parsons then said that he's the only one who plays every position across the defensive line as if they got paid at that position.
This is a very hard claim to verify. He has split his team between the left and right sides of the defensive line fairly equally throughout his career, but he hasn't lined up on the interior as often as he's seemingly claiming to have done here. He's been very effective when lined up inside because he's way too fast for guards and centers, but he's also mostly used there in pure pass-rush situations, which benefits his skill set.
Garrett, meanwhile, lines up on the right side of the line considerably more often than the left, and also hasn't lined up on the interior very often. However, I do not doubt his claim that he has a sack from every spot across the line. He's that good.
As for playing at Parsons' weight, well, Garrett is right that he can't just magically be 240 pounds. He's much bigger than that.
But then Garrett took a shot at Parsons' run-defending abilities, claiming the smaller edge rusher can't actually set the edge and get tackles for loss. This is one of the most overblown and inaccurate narratives in the league.
Parsons has at least 28 run stops in every season he's been in the NFL, per Pro Football Focus, and finished last season just five behind Anderson despite playing in three fewer games. And far from having four tackles for loss in the last two years, Parsons actually has 24 across 27 games. Garrett is clearly the more dominant player against the run, though (he led the league in TFLs in each of the last two years and finished with an absurd 33 last season alone), so if anyone is going to take a crack at Parsons and have a leg to stand on, it's probably him.
Parsons then claimed that Garrett's record would only stand but for so long. And that's undoubtedly true. Records are made to be broken. Garrett broke Michael Strahan and T.J. Watt's record, and they broke the record of luminaries before them. Someone will break Garrett's record, eventually.
Whether it's going to be Parsons, though, is a different story. If there's anyone who can do it, it's probably the guy who pressures the quarterback more than anybody else. His career high is "only" 14 sacks, though, and he probably won't be setting a new one this season because he's starting the year on the physically unable to perform list. In the future, he'll likely have to increase his aforementioned pressure-to-sack ratio in order to get there.
