New Packers Star Micah Parsons Isn’t Looking for Seconds

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Micah Parsons is hungry for knowledge.

The new Green Bay Packers defensive end, who joined the team less than one week ago, isn’t interested in learning Jeff Hafley’s defensive scheme in bite-sized portions.

“I’m so hungry, I want it all at once, but that’s why you got coaches,” Parsons said after practice on Thursday, a few days before Sunday’s Week 1 showdown against the Detroit Lions. “I always been like that. I never been the type to say, I’m going to come back on seconds. I’m going to load the plate all at once. I’m going to get everything I need in one meal.”

Parsons said he’s learned about 80 percent of the defense.

“Honestly, bro, the system’s been pretty easy,” he said. “I think they’re just good teachers – great teachers. The coaches been unbelievable getting me in extra meetings, staying out later, coming in before, coming in on the off-day, and just me on my own time catching up to make their transition a lot easier.

“So, we all just been hands on trying to learn this playbook. There’s a couple things they want to get me in, but we’re just taking it one week at a time, especially with the ramp up, just getting me on where they feel I can play and things like that.”

Parsons’ defensive coordinator last season, Mike Zimmer, called him “brilliant” in terms of his understanding of football.

“The thing I have learned in a short period of time, he’s got a really high football IQ. I mean very high IQ,” Hafley said. “He can take the information and give it back to you very quickly and that has been very impressive. That is something I did not know because I’ve never been around him, but he has a high football IQ.”

Hafley said he watched each of Parsons’ pressures, which came with him aligned at practically every spot on the defense, and immediately started dreaming up ways to use his new star.

“All of a sudden, Micah Parsons walks in the building and, I mean, it’s game week and my mind starts going 100 miles an hour on all the ways that you can use him,” Hafley said.

Parsons loves rushing the passer; he’s fifth in the NFL in sacks, hits and tackles for losses since entering the league in 2021. He also loves playing linebacker; that’s where he starred at Penn State and earned Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.

For now, Parsons’ role will be rather simple and then evolve over time.

“He hasn’t even been here for a week,” Hafley said. Thursday was Parsons’ third practice, so there’s been “very limited reps to see him out there in individual and some other periods. There hasn’t been too much.”

“Now, I’ve studied years of his tape in the last week,” he continued, “so I have a pretty good idea of what he can do. And I have a lot of drawings packed away for when he is ramped up and ready to go. But for now, it’s just kind of getting a glimpse of what it’s going to be and trying to figure out early what he can do best, what he can do right now, and what gives our team the best chance to have success.”

Parsons said it’s “more fun sometimes” to play linebacker but he knows where his bread is buttered.

“I think on third down I like to get to the quarterback,” he said. “I think the people like that more if you get to the quarterback; I don’t know why. But I think a guy who can go out there and get 13 tackles, two TFLs and a PBU, that’s my type of guy.

“But people just like those guys who get to the quarterback, which I’m fine with that. I like that, too, but I really like doing both and I hope he lets me kind of do that, but I think it’s hard when you got Quay (Walker) and Edgerrin (Cooper) here, just some guys. But I told them, if they want to rush some, they can. I don’t mind that.”

Parsons called his crash course into the defense “really fun.” The Packers gave up two first-round picks and Kenny Clark to land one of the best young defensive players of the generation. It would be coaching malpractice to not fully utilize Parsons’ diverse skill-set.

It’s going to take some time, but Parsons and the coaches are acting with urgency to take advantage of everything he can do.

“When we’re young, we love learning things, right?” Parsons said. “If I taught you how to play a game and you really loved the game, you’re like, ‘Oh, man, this game’s really fun,’ and I think just learning a new system and being around a different group of guys, we’re learning who can go here.

“It’s like the chess board. We’re learning what piece is what and I think Haf, he wants to make me a queen again and move me around and he’s trying to say, ‘What do you like? What don’t you like?’ And I’m like, ‘Man, I like it all. Just load it whatever and then we’ll talk about (it later),’ and I think that’s what he’s been doing. I’m just … they’re putting a lot on my plate and I take that and I’m excited about the opportunity.”

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