Andrew Whitworth on Micah Parsons: ‘I literally immediately told him... you’re going to be real special.’

We are only two games into this Dallas Cowboys season, but if one thing is certain, it is that Micah Parsons is picking up exactly where he left off. There is no question that Parsons is the best player on this Cowboys team and the catalyst for chaos within Dan Quinn’s defense. From just about day one Parsons has found a way to defy the odds and somehow, some way, improve upon his game almost on a weekly basis.

Everybody who has encountered Parsons in a football capacity has had a glowing review of him. Usually this includes other pass rushers or quarterbacks who the Cowboys are facing in a given week, but it can also include other people as well.

Andrew Whitworth recently retired and began a career as a broadcaster this season. He spoke to Lindsay Rhodes on the NFL Rhodes Show and brought up Parsons while discussing last week’s performance from the Cincinnati Bengals, the team Dallas beat and that Parsons had two sacks against.

“Micah Parsons, I’ll tell you. I told somebody this. I’ve faced obviously a ton of rushers in my career. Right. 250 games playing in the NFL, 17,000 snaps, I’ve played some guys. Right. You name it. From every era. I’ve played in three different decades. I’ve faced Micah Parsons in one snap, and we would play against each other last year in training camp. And he didn’t win the rep or anything but like… I literally immediately told him I said man, you’re going to be real special.”

“And he was just like thank you. And I kind of gave him like a little tidbit. I said hey, one thing I’d tell you when you do this certain move, like I could kind of see that you were going to do it. And so afterwards we kind of visited. And he was like how do you know I’m going to be special? And we just kind of were talking about that. It’s just… you can feel the way a guy.”

“Look at like a receiver knows how to separate. You can just feel when a guy rushes, this guy knows how to rush. Like he knows how to get off of you or get leverage and kind of change the math on you a little bit, of where you like, how you think you’re going to run him around. Or you think you’re going to get on top of him. He has a perfect answer.”

“Like the one thing you’re like well as long as they don’t do this I’ll be okay… he feels that ability to be able to do that which is what really sets him apart, is that he’s a feel rusher. He doesn’t have a planned move. He feels what he’s doing.”

This is certainly high praise and it is in line with everything that we have seen from Parsons since he entered the NFL. He is truly unpredictable in a way that makes him difficult to block which is highlighted by Whitworth referring to him as a “feel” rusher.

Parsons has continued to grow and develop which felt pretty impossible given what we saw from him throughout his rookie year. Week 2 ended with him as the leading sacker in the NFL, what will the following weeks and games have in store?