I probably don’t need to convince you, the Packer fan, that giving up two firsts, and Kenny Clark for a top-three (and I would argue “the best”) defensive player in football is worth it, but not everyone is a Packer fan. But some people are not Packer fans. Some people are neutral, or hostile, or Jerry Jones, and those folks may not be convinced of just how monumental an upgrade this is. For instance, this guy, who you can tell is smart because his last name is the word people use to describe smart gamblers.
Before I get into my own (honestly not that gory) math, check out Aaron Schatz of FTN’s gory math:
That’s a big jump! Aaron also notes elsewhere that defensive players are seldom worth more than a one win, and he’s right, but I suspect this is the outlier. The exception that proves the rule. About a year ago, I wrote about why the baseball Wins Above Replacement (WAR) statistics can never work in football. I stand by that, but I think understanding why that’s the case will help explain why Parsons is far more valuable than any other non-quarterback.
The short version of the WAR problem in football is as follows:
- You’re splitting 17 available wins among 53 players.
- Of those 53, quarterbacks eat up at least 1-2 wins, and good quarterbacks can account for 6-8, so now we’re splitting 11-14 wins among 52 players.
- A tenth of a win in WAR is so small that there’s no way to account for noise, randomness, and luck for anyone but the QB. We know that running backs provide some value, but it’s so small that it’s literally difficult to quantify.
Defensive players are also tricky in terms of assigning individual value because, for instance, if you’re an elite cornerback, the quarterback can simply choose not to throw at you. That’s valuable, but it is again a tricky value to quantify. Organizations like PFF briefly held that a top corner was more valuable than an edge rusher when they were doing their WAR research (though it was close), and I think that’s wrong. It’s not an unreasonable case because you need more corners than edge rushers, which adds to their scarcity, and the athleticism to play high-level corner really is rare, like short stops in baseball. And a good corner can serve to shrink the field for the other corners and safeties in the secondary. Corners are undoubtedly valuable, and if nothing else, more valuable than every other defensive position than edge rusher.
But I’m fairly sure that edge rushers are more valuable, and elite edge rushers like Parsons are more valuable to an absurd extent, for two main reasons.
- You can’t avoid edge rushers like you can corners.
- Edge rushers uniquely impact quarterbacks, who are the most valuable players in football.
Defenses fluctuate wildly in value from year to year, specifically because the quality of the offenses and quarterbacks they’re facing is such a HUGE factor in how they perform, and because the reactive nature of defense is so much less predictable. The offense is much more stable and predictable for the simple reason that the offense has the ball! Sometimes football isn’t actually that complicated.
But not EVERYTHING on defense is reactive. Defense (well, pass defense, the most important defense) is basically an equation, where X = the maximum time your secondary can cover people, and Y = the time it takes for the pass rush to cause pressure. If X
There are really and truly only a few players like this. I could tell you various statistics like that over his career. Parsons leads the league in pass rush win rate at 30% and no one else is within 4 percentage points of that. I could mention that the only two pass rushers in football who are even in the ballpark with Parsons’ underlying numbers are Myles Garrett, who is entering his age 30 season, and Aidan Hutchinson, who is returning from a serious injury, though only 25 and likely to recover fine.
And most importantly, edge rushers are NOT reactive. The pass rush is the only part of the defense that is proactive, because it’s the position that attacks the one player on offense who MUST possess the ball (especially on passing plays), and so the quarterback cannot simply avoid it by not targeting it. The “LOL the Packers paid for a defensive player” sentiment above is, charitably, a bizarre oversimplification. Bucketing Micah Parsons, a 26-year-old on a hall-of-fame trajectory, with normal defensive players is something you should think twice about. The Packers have, after all, gone to this well before, with Reggie White, Charles Woodson, and I would also argue Julius Peppers. All three were not just elite, but among the most elite players ever to play football. I personally think Parsons is on a similar trajectory, as he is one of only eight players in NFL history (Al Baker, who holds the single season sack record, Derrick Thomas, JJ Watt, Jack Youngblood, Danielle Hunter, Dwight Freeney, and Robert Quinn, being the other seven) to record more than 50 sacks prior to his age 26 season.
One might argue that the Packers trading for a player and then paying him a market value contract will negate any surplus value that Parsons might provide, but this misses the realities of the NFL salary cap. Because there are so few wins to split between a full NFL roster, but so many players need to be paid, it’s essentially impossible to overpay a one-win (or more) player. Just for reference, the Bears’ Khalil Mack trade has been raised as a comparable for this deal more than a few times, and that trade is viewed by some as a failure, but it’s worth noting:
- Parsons is a year younger than Mack was when he was traded.
- The Bears allowed the 9th fewest points (320) the year before acquiring Mack, and the fewest points (283) the following year while upping their record from 5-11 under John Fox to 12-4 under Matt Nagy.
- In Mack’s second season, Mitch Trubisky and the offense crashed and burned, but Mack and the defense were still great, finishing fourth in points allowed with 296.
The problem with Mack was more about the rest of the Bears than anything, and that is simply not the situation with the Packers. Green Bay under Matt LaFleur consistently runs one of the most efficient offenses in football. It’s not perfect, but it’s unlikely to be below average. The Packers have been good, but not great, contenders for multiple seasons, and this is the kind of move that can push you over the top, as was the case with White, and Woodson.
And so, now when the Packers face the Lions, where speeding up Jared Goff’s clock is just about the most important thing a defense can do, instead of watching Taylor Decker and Penei Sewell capably handle Rashan Gary and Lukas Van Ness with relative ease, we get to watch them figure out how to stop one of the league’s best pass rushers, and also handle those other guys. Now the Bears have to take several extra steps to protect their extremely sack-prone second-year quarterback. Now, instead of friendly, clean pockets, young JJ McCarthy has to deal with a horror show.
Individual quarterbacks are the only position worth multiple wins in football, and so, to steal those wins from them is the next most valuable thing you can do. Micah Parsons does it better than literally anyone else in the league.