Getty Micah Parsons, Cowboys
It is not often that you can get Dallas Cowboys star Micah Parsons to quit much of anything. That’s not how the two-time All-Pro pass rusher and NFL defensive MVP candidate is wired. But it does appear that he is giving up on his crusade on NFL officiating, which, he has said, has lost its way on holding penalties.
After the Steelers’ defensive coordinator Teryl Austin claimed that T.J. Watt was held so often that it was as if offensive linemen were daring the refs to make a call—he called it the “Hack-a-Shaq” treatment, after the physical way NBA defenses would go against huge Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal—Parsons was asked for his thoughts on the subject.
He claimed he was planning on holding his tongue. But that, too, is not how he is wired.
“It’s comical, you know,” Parsons said on Wednesday after practice. “T.J. you know, he’s good. It’s something that we should not even call out anymore. We all see what’s going on. We don’t got to say it. The fans, the media, the reporters, they all see it. It is just something they are not making an emphasis on. And you know, they’re getting away and they want teams to score lots of points. At the end of the day, that’s what they want.
“They want fans to get excited, that’s what fans like, you like touchdowns. Y’all don’t really like sacks and things like that.”
Cowboys’ Micah Parsons Has 11.0 Sacks
Currently, Micah Parsons is tied for sixth in sacks in the NFL, with 11.5. That’s 3.5 sacks behind the leader, Khalil Mack. T.J. Watt is just behind Mack with 14.0 sacks. But like Watt, Parsons shudders to think how many sacks he could have if he was not consistently the target of non-called holding penalties.
It was a complaint Parsons made publicly after the Thanksgiving win over the Commanders, when Washington miraculously went the entire game without a holding call. Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy had a conversation with Parsons about the situation after that. Parsons has held back on ref complaints since.
Parsons said the refs have a clear goal when it comes to ignoring holding calls—in the NFL, the quarterbacks are the stars, and the league needs to protect them.
“That’s OK, it just makes our job a little bit harder,” Parsons said. “You know, that’s the clickbait, right? The quarterbacks sell. That’s what they want to protect, that’s what they want to do. They want to protect these offensive guy.”
Non-Called Holding Penalties a Leaguewide Problem
When he made the holding penalties complaints about the refs previously, Parsons noted that he is not the kind of player who will “flop” to accentuate a holding penalty and force a call. To his credit, though, he acknowledged he is not the only one who does that—he cited Cleveland’s Myles Garrett and the 49ers’ Nick Bosa as well as Watt.
It’s not just a Micah Parsons issue or a Cowboys issue, he said.
“We just got to learn it and adapt in their world, we gotta get off blocks better,” Parsons said. “We don’t get those calls, both ways. It’s all across the league. I won’t say it’s just me. Myles gets held a lot. T.J. Nick, I saw some holds last week that should be holds. It is not just me. There’s plenty of good pass rushers who get held pretty good.”
And Parsons confessed that he has some motivation for not getting too critical of the referees—if he does not call them out too much, maybe he will get some more calls himself.
“I just want people to call it out,” Parsons said. “I am probably going to stop because, like he said, maybe I’ll get a call then. You just gotta play through it. At the end of the day, it sucks, but it’s part of the game.”