A ghost from Eagles’ past—Micah Parsons—will make a return this Monday night on national TV when the Eagles travel to Lambeau Field and take on a desperate Green Bay Packers team.
Green Bay is sitting at
5-2-1, just .5 game ahead of the 5-3 Detroit Lions and charging 5-3 Chicago Bears. The Bears host the 2-7 New York Giants this weekend, while Detroit travels to 3-6 Washington. They are two very winnable games for the Packers’ NFC North rivals, which places more stress on the underachieving Packers.
Green Bay is using Parsons the same way his former team, the Dallas Cowboys, did, moving him around the line of scrimmage, never really settling on one set spot.
Parsons has 6.5 sacks in eight games for Green Bay, and 43 quarterback pressures. He still is a game wrecker, something Eagles’ coach Nick Sirianni addressed this week.
“Yeah, Micah Parsons is a phenomenal football player that can hurt you in many different ways,” Sirianni said on Thursday. “[He] just creates a lot of disruption, and I think sometimes you think of that only in the pass game — he creates a lot of disruption in the run game. I think about a fumble that he caused in our game against [the Cowboys] in 2022. It had nothing to do with a pass play, you know. It was a run play. So, so much respect to the player and who he is. I just can’t say enough good things about him. I’m thankful that we only play him once a year [now] — well, we played Green Bay twice last year, so we’ll see how that goes.
“Carolina did a good job of — I know they stayed efficient on first and second down, stayed out of some known pass situations where he can be even more disruptive,” Sirianni said, answering a question on how the Panthers were able to keep Parsons in check last week.
“But again, like I said, he’s disruptive in everything he does. And they’re doing a good job of moving him around, putting him in different spots. So, you have to account for where he is, but it’s hard to account for where he is because they’re moving him around so much. So [I have] a lot of respect for their defensive coaches and what they’ve been doing there. But I can’t say enough good things about him, yeah he’s really good.”
In the past, Eagles’ offensive line coach and run coordinator Jeff Stoutland had an easy remedy when he came to neutralizing Parsons: Run at him.
It forced Parsons to think more on the field, as to whether to rush the quarterback or hold the edge as a run defender. It slowed Parsons down. In seven career games against the Eagles when he played for Dallas, the three-time All-Pro defensive end had five sacks.
“That was a really good defense already last year,” said Eagles’ quarterback Jalen Hurts during his media session this week. “So, adding Micah to the mix makes them that much more of a problem.”
Because opposing teams place so much attention on Parsons, it frees up other areas of the field for Packers’ defenders. Pro Bowl edge rusher Rashan Gary leads the Packers with 7.5 sacks, and defensive tackles Devonte Wyatt and Colby Wooden have a combined 37 tackles and six tackles for losses.
Like Hurts said, Green Bay already had a reputable defense. The addition of Parsons makes the Packers that much stronger. Green Bay’s upset home loss to Carolina in Week 9 makes the Packers that much more dire.
