Micah Parsons has chance to do something only Lawrence Taylor and Luke Kuechly have done

Micah Parsons is the reigning NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. Unlike most NFL accolades, this is a title that is impossible to defend because Parsons will never be a rookie again. You only get one opportunity to win an award like that, unlike the more senior version of the award which is the NFL Defensive Player of the Year (a title Parsons arguably should have won last year as well).

If you take a look at a list of the winners of the former award there are obviously a lot of names that you know, but some players fizzled out over the course of their careers. The list of the winners of the latter award is filled with names you would find decorating the halls of Canton, Ohio.

While there are more team-centered goals that we all want to see Parsons and the Dallas Cowboys win, we also want to see him succeed on an individual level, too. If he does to the ultimate degree in 2022 then he will join a very limited group of players who have done so.

Micah Parsons has a chance to do something only Lawrence Taylor and Luke Kuechly have done before

Timing is everything in football and really in life as a whole. You have to strike when the iron is hot and if you are an NFL player you are hopeful that it will be hot for a long and prosperous career.

If Parsons continues on the trajectory he is on then he is likely going to put a Defensive Player of the Year trophy on his mantle very soon, but did you know that if he accomplishes that feat during his sophomore season that he will join a very exclusive list of people who have won the awards in their first two seasons?

Over the course of NFL history, only two players have won Defensive Rookie of the Year and then immediately Defensive Player of the Year in the very next season:

• Lawrence Taylor (1981-1982)
• Luke Kuechly (2012-2013)

Of course, where Taylor stands alone is that he also won Defensive Player of the Year during his rookie season which makes his run a little bit more impressive and one that Parsons, who has often been compared to LT, cannot match anymore.

It goes without saying that every Dallas Cowboys fan cares more about the team winning a Super Bowl than individual awards that players can win, but still it would be awesome to see Parsons pull this off. Both Taylor and Kuechly were outstanding for their teams in the way that we all hope Parsons is for the Cowboys over his career.

Our friends at DraftKings have Parsons with the second-best odds to win DPOY in 2022 at +1000. There is a three-way tie for best odds at +700 among Myles Garrett, Aaron Donald, and T.J. Watt, though.

The lion is always hungry, and he has a chance to eat something special this coming season.