OXNARD, Calif. — Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer has never had a player like Micah Parsons who can be used in so many different ways.
Parsons has never been coached the way Zimmer is working with him.
Put them together, the Zimmer-Parsons relationship seems poised to unlock the best from him.
“I think it’s going to be a very interesting year,” Parsons said.
Parsons, the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2021 and a two-time first-team All-Pro, has primarily been a pass rusher in each of his first three seasons in the NFL. His sack tally rose from 13 in his first season to 13 1/2 in 2022 to 14 last season.
But Parsons is going to be playing off the ball more as a linebacker under Zimmer, who was a coordinator for the Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons and Cincinnati Bengals for 14 seasons before becoming head coach of the Minnesota Vikings for eight years.
Zimmer returned to the Cowboys in February after spending the past two seasons out of the game following his dismissal by the Vikings in January 2022.
One of his immediate priorities was figuring out how to get the most out of Parsons, hoping to see “if we can help him continue to be a little bit better all the time,” Zimmer said.
Parsons has dropped a few pounds to be better prepared to chase down running backs, slot receivers and tight ends in coverage. The bigger change has been meetings with Zimmer and run game coordinator Paul Guenther over breakfast intended to develop his football IQ, sessions so informative Parsons believes they are setting the foundation for him to become a coach in the future.
“We go through defense stuff, but we go through the X’s and O’s of why this happened, why we don’t call this, why we roll the coverage, who we want to take out of the coverage,” Parsons said. “So I’m not just learning the D-line stuff for the front. I’m learning the back end, the corners, the safeties. Why we want to show this way, why we want to send the pressure over this way because the safety’s over there. You know, it’s interesting, and it’s a perspective I never had before.”
Zimmer wants players to avoid the “tunnel vision” of only knowing his specific position. By having them understand the entire system, even going so far as asking an edge rusher what the cornerback is doing in a Cover 2 pass defense, Zimmer believes they will be better at executing their responsibilities.
With Parsons, Zimmer seeks to maximize every bit of his considerable ability.
“Great players want to be coached,” Zimmer said. “Players want to get better. And my philosophy has always been if they think you can help them, and you know what you’re doing, they’re gonna listen ’cause their career is not very long. And so the more they can become better and better, obviously the better for the team and better for their careers.”
Parsons, in turn, appreciates that aggressive coaching. He credits Penn State head coach James Franklin and then defensive coordinator Brent Pry, now the head coach at Virginia Tech, for pushing Parsons so hard en route to being drafted 12th overall.
Now, Parsons wants Zimmer and Guenther to help turn him into the undisputed best defender in football. And when Zimmer communicates something to Parsons, the 25-year-old understands it is important.
“Zim doesn’t say a lot, but he says why,” Parsons said. “Like there’s always a purpose behind what he says, so when he does speak, you actually like really listen to it and you gravitate to it.”
Even after losing defensive end Sam Williams to a torn ACL, depriving the Cowboys of someone who was expected to play 70% of the snaps there and free up Parsons to play more linebacker, Zimmer is looking forward to the task of unleashing Parsons’ full potential.
“Obviously I’ve had some really good players, Deion Sanders, Danielle Hunter, guys we’ve been able to do a lot of different things with,” Zimmer said. “But with him, I don’t know that he couldn’t play every position. He could probably play free safety if he wanted to.”
Zimmer quickly added a caveat.
“Wouldn’t want him back there covering the pass very much,” he joked.
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