All eyes are on Micah Parsons, though that’s hardly unusual. During the season, it’s usually opposing offensive coaches and players who constantly obsess over Parsons, where he’s at and who’s tasked with trying (and often failing) to stop him.
Right now, all eyes are on his money, specifically the lack thereof. Parsons’ rookie deal is set to expire after this upcoming season, and extension talks have been slow thus far. To no one’s surprise, Parsons has opted to skip voluntary workouts, though he recently pledged to show up for mandatory OTA’s, avoiding any potential fines or added drama.
While everyone is focused on whether or not a deal will happen - spoiler alert: it will, but not before a lot more hand-wringing - the bigger question regarding the superstar defender should be focused on what his role will be in 2025.
Since entering the league in 2021, Parsons has enjoyed a sort of hybrid role for the Cowboys. While his elite pass rush skills have meant that he’s going after the quarterback on the majority of snaps, it hasn’t kept him from being moved around the defense like a chess piece.
When Dan Quinn was in town, Parsons lined up quite literally everywhere. He spent most of his time on the line of scrimmage, but lined up somewhere different every snap. He would frequently start at off-ball linebacker too, before blitzing at the snap. Quinn even had Parsons lined up out wide as a defensive back on a couple isolated occasions.
Parsons’ role became a bit more defined with Mike Zimmer last year, but not restrictively so. While the 2024 season saw Parsons’ highest percentage of snaps on the line of scrimmage, Zimmer essentially built his scheme around Parsons having the discretion to line up wherever he wanted, with the star pass rusher saying this early in the season:
The fact that I got the creativity to control things where I know I got to be on my A-game always because I got these other guys depending on me now to like controlling that [alignment]. It kind of gets me more excited, it gets me more into it. It gets that drive, that hunger just a little bit more. Now I feel like I just can’t let this guy [Zimmer] down. He’s giving me the keys to the system.
Parsons still primarily played out on the edges, where he’s most comfortable and most effective, but the freedom to move around at will helped unlock a different animal for the Lion. It became common for Parsons to work as a linebacker mugging the A-gap on third downs, a popular front for Zimmer. He even took 17 charted snaps at defensive tackle, an alignment so unique that offensive linemen didn’t quite know what to do with it.
Zimmer is gone, though, and he’s replaced by Matt Eberflus. While there are some philosophical similarities between Eberflus and Zimmer - they both come from 4-3 backgrounds and call a lot of zone coverage - there are more differences than similarities.
Eberflus has generally been more rigid in his schemes. While Zimmer is hellbent on doing anything and everything to confuse the quarterback - sometimes at the cost of confusing his own players, too - Eberflus has always prioritized simplicity in scheme, preferring to let his players’ natural athleticism do the work for them.
That begs the question of how Eberflus will deploy Parsons. In looking at Eberflus’ defenses in the past, the most we’ve seen in terms of creativity with his pass rushers is having hybrid defensive ends who shift inside on passing downs. Hardly akin to the multiplicity that Parsons is capable of.
That said, Eberflus has never worked with a player like Parsons.
Earlier in the offseason, Eberflus was asked about his plans for the perennial All Pro. While he didn’t give anything specific - not atypical for coaches in February - Eberflus did say this:
“Micah is a premier pass rusher. We’re going to use him that way, certainly, and he’s one heck of an athlete that can do a lot of different things for us on defense. And when you have a guy like that, you want to be able to utilize his skill set.
As we’re around him more, we’ll see what that skill set is, and really take advantage of that. … He knows that we’ll just make him in the best light that he can be in terms of position, in terms of pass rush, and really utilizing what he does best, and that’s rushing the passer.”
Eberflus seems to be hinting at still preserving some of Parsons’ positional flexibility, but did keep coming back to his view of Parsons’ value really coming in the pass rush aspect. Another key bread crumb from his comments: “as we’re around him more.”
Thus far, Eberflus hasn’t been around Parsons much. Therefore, the process of figuring out how to move him around, where he’s most comfortable, and how the scheme should change as a result of that position flex has been delayed somewhat.
It doesn’t help that the Cowboys didn’t retain any defensive coaches from last year, aside from former safety Darian Thompson, who is assisting with the secondary. Eberflus won’t have any other coaches to rely on for intel about how to best maximize Parsons’ unique abilities, just the players and the film.
Parsons is likely to still be a one-man wrecking crew even if Eberflus’ plans for him are vanilla compared to recent seasons, but it’s something worth considering. Given how much of Parsons’ tremendous value stems from the fact that he can beat you from anywhere, it’s at least a little concerning that we don’t really know how he’ll be used in this new scheme.