'I Can Beat Anybody!' Inside Cowboys' Plan to Move Micah Parsons at 49ers
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SAN JOSE - “The bigger the stage, the bigger the player,'' Micah Parsons said this week in anticipation of today's Dallas Cowboys' playoff visit to San Francisco. "Right?”
Right.
Maybe.
It depends in part on which stage Micah finds himself positioned on.
A year ago, as a rookie, Parsons and the Cowboys lost to the Niners in the playoffs in a season in which Micah mostly played linebacker. ... with 374 snaps on the defensive line and 498 at linebacker.
That's 43 percent of the time on the line.
This regular season, a major change: 738 snaps on the defensive line and 171 at linebacker.
That's 82 percent of the time - twice as often as last year - on the line.
That 82-percent range continued in the playoff win at Tampa, as he played 79 snaps, 64 on the line and 15 at linebacker.
We bet that changes today. ... and Micah is hinting at the same.
“We’re just switching the looks up,” Parsons said, “five-man, four-man, get people to worry about the threat, the possibility of me coming, not coming, dropping into coverage. We’ve been working some things so we get some disguised looks, make people think.
“I can rush from the left side, the right side, the guard, center, it don’t matter where we’re at. I feel I can beat anybody.”
Pressure on the rookie Purdy is obviously key. A strip-sack - something the Cowboys certainly practice - would be nice.
But against a 49ers team with tackle-breaking talent, and yards-after-catch talent ... wrapping up and bringing down ball-carriers is also key.
So Parsons as a chess piece, with a line/linebacker percentage split more like last year, makes sense. ... somewhat for the purpose of deception, somewhat as a practical strategic matter.
Meanwhile, despite the potentially historic win over Brady and the Bucs, the Cowboys are "underdogs" heading into the Divisional round versus the San Francisco 49ers. Parsons is aware.
"What everybody's saying, we hear it: 'No way the Cowboys are going to win," Micah Parsons said. "I think you should feed into it; you should love that stuff. When no one believes in you, that's the best feeling. I really like being the underdog.
"It's always a great story to tell."
Parsons and the Cowboys are talking openly about "revenge'' here after having their Super Bowl hopes ended a year ago by San Francisco.
"I'm super excited,'' he said. "This is (the opponent) that I wanted. If this is the three-headed dragon, we need to cut one of the heads off."
A super-excited Micah must also be a super-effective one here, at all the spots coordinator Dan Quinn asks him to take on. That, said "big-stage'' Parsons, represents one of the All-Pro's assets.
"They're gonna beat my ass if I play their game," Micah said. "I'm going to play my game. I'm gonna bring my strengths and what I bring to the table."
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