FRISCO, Texas — Cowboys owner Jerry Jones insists that Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons was the top-graded defensive player on their draft board. He ended up being the third defender picked Thursday night in the first round of the NFL Draft. Dallas selected him with the 12th overall pick after trading back two spots with the division rival Philadelphia Eagles.
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“I was surprised a little bit,” said Parsons, who only met virtually with the Cowboys once during the pre-draft process. “Everything happens for a reason. I put it out to the world last year that I wanted to be a Cowboy. I’m just blessed my dream came true.”
Parsons posted on Instagram in January that he wanted to play for the Cowboys and “start where I finished.”
The Cowboys use the 12th overall pick on Micah Parsons. The Penn State LB gets his wish pic.twitter.com/pi8dxtUHwZ
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) April 30, 2021
Parsons’ final college game was played at the Cowboys’ home venue, AT&T Stadium. He finished with 14 tackles, three tackles for loss, two sacks and two forced fumbles in Penn State’s 53-39 Cotton Bowl win over Memphis at the end of the 2019 season. Parsons opted out last year during the COVID-19 pandemic to prepare for this year’s draft.
“I wanted to finish what I started,” Parsons said. “I had a great game (against) Memphis. I fell in love with that stadium. I fell in love with everything they had to offer in Dallas. I knew what type of system I was coming into and who I wanted to play next to, the competition I wanted to go against every day offensively.
“I think I’m going to go against the best offense in America the whole season, so it’s only going to make me better. And we’re going to go from there. I also knew what Jerry Jones was about. He wants to win, and he got a winner.”
Dallas would have preferred one of the top cornerbacks, South Carolina’s Jaycee Horn or Alabama’s Patrick Surtain II. The two teams picking ahead of the Cowboys, the Panthers and Broncos, had similar thoughts. Horn went eighth overall to Carolina and Surtain went ninth to Denver. That left the Cowboys at No. 10 with a few decisions to make, draft Parsons or Northwestern offensive lineman Rashawn Slater or trade back, gain an extra third-round pick and still get one of those two players.
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“We’ve been talking about the cornerbacks being gone at 8 and 9 for days,” Jones said. “But certainly today we intensively talked about the possibility all day long, about being ready. There were no surprises, no consternation about the circ*mstances to make this pick.”
There were more opportunities to continue to trade back, but Jones said he didn’t feel comfortable going any further and potentially losing out on Parsons. Trading up from Pick 10 to possibly No. 6 or 7 to get one of the cornerbacks wasn’t a serious consideration for Dallas because of the significant cost involved.
Trading with the Eagles wasn’t a concern because the two teams had been talking for several days and Dallas knew Philadelphia wasn’t looking to grab Parsons. The Eagles, who told the Cowboys before the trade that they were targeting an offensive player, picked Heisman Trophy-winning wide receiver DeVonta Smith at No. 10. The Cowboys were confident that Smith was going to end up in the NFC East one way or the other because the New York Giants at No. 11 would likely have drafted him. After the Eagles picked Smith, New York traded back to Pick 20 and selected Florida wide receiver Kadarius Toney.
Two years ago, the Cowboys appeared to have one of the best linebacker groups in the league, led by Jaylon Smith, Leighton Vander Esch and Sean Lee. But the number of impactful plays Smith has made the last two seasons has dropped off. Vander Esch has struggled to stay healthy. Lee retired earlier this week.
Dallas’ most notable free agency signing was a one-year deal with former Falcons first-round pick Keanu Neal. Although he played safety for the Falcons, Neal is expected to see time at weakside linebacker with the Cowboys. So with Smith, Vander Esch and Neal, where does another linebacker fit in? Jones certainly didn’t draft Parsons at No. 12 to sit on the bench.
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“Pressure, pressure, pressure,” Jones told a small group of reporters following a late Thursday night news conference at The Star. “Whether it’s from the inside or whether it’s from the outside, pressure is what we see on how to use him with that speed and that size.”
The 6-3, 245-pound Parsons was an edge rusher coming out of high school. He was ranked the No. 2 weakside defensive end prospect in the 2018 recruiting class and the No. 5 overall player, according to 247Sports. But at Penn State, Parsons made the move to weakside linebacker in their 4-3 scheme. During 13 games in 2019, Parsons totaled 109 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, five sacks, four forced fumbles and five passes defended.
With the Cowboys, he’s expected to be able to play every linebacker position, likely at middle or weakside on first and second downs and then becoming more of a pass rusher on third downs.
“This guy was right there in our thinking with who might we get from the edge,” Jones said. “Who might we get that’s got a little twitch for us in the middle of a big interior defensive line. This guy, if you watch his play and watch what he did in college, this guy can give us the pressure. Consequently, he can do that, plus he can if you need him to do some coverage and things like that. But our first thing and the reason we drafted him, frankly, is the pressure aspect.
“He’s the same kind of thought you’d have when you’re looking at the best outside pass rusher, because he may be.”
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy called Parsons a “dynamic player” who gives the entire linebacker group flexibility.
“Clearly, when you watch him play he is a multi-positional player,” McCarthy said. “He obviously can play on the ball as a linebacker. He has natural pass-rush skills. That is something that we talked about the last 10 days as we prepared for what would go on after pick seven in this draft. Playing off the ball, he is an impact rusher, inside and outside. He can play in the bubble, play behind the three-technique. He is a dynamic, pressure player, and he is definitely going to make an impact for us on defense.”
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Parsons was asked by teams during the pre-draft process about some maturity issues. He was accused in a civil lawsuit of participating in hazing incidents against a former college teammate.
“They did all their background checks, and I let them know the truth,” Parsons said. “There’s nothing pending against me. There’s nothing I would lie about. They did a thorough background check. Everything was dropped, all that type of stuff. They were false allegations. I never got to speak on my name because it’s hard to say that while you’re in the process, but obviously, they did their background.
“They know I’m not a character concern at all. I think I’m a great person, and I’m going to keep becoming a better father and person every day, not only for myself but for my entire family. And Cowboys Nation, I got to represent them every day now, too.”
Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said the Cowboys did a “tremendous amount of homework” on Parsons.
“We felt really good about anything he had that there might be a concern about,” Stephen Jones said. “We did it backwards, forwards, every which way you can do it.”
In the process of trading back, Dallas added Philadelphia’s 84th overall pick in the third round, giving the Cowboys four picks on Day 2 and a total of 10 remaining through Rounds 2-7. The Cowboys currently own five top-100 picks, something they haven’t had since 1996. Here are more than 30 available players who make sense for the Cowboys in the second and third rounds.
Having so many picks means they have the resources to package some of them together and trade up if the right situation presents itself. The Cowboys also have several key players, like Dak Prescott, DeMarcus Lawrence, Amari Cooper, Ezekiel Elliott and Zack Martin taking up a large chunk of their salary cap. Adding several impactful contributors on rookie contracts will be necessary not only this year but in several future drafts.
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“Cap-wise the logic would be to take each one of them,” Stephen Jones said. “That gives us the opportunity to have very valuable players at a low price. But if the right guy is sitting there or we want to go get a guy, certainly we have the ammunition to make a move. If we see a guy that we want and we’re still about eight or nine picks out and don’t think he’ll make it to us then let’s go get him. We’ve done that before, and we’re certainly not opposed to doing that.”
LIVE BLOG:The latest from the NFL Draft
ROUND 1 PICK BY PICK:Dane Brugler’s analysis
DRAFT GRADES:Sheil Kapadia’s report cards
BIG BOARD:Best available players remaining
(Photo of Micah Parsons: Gregory Fisher / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Jon Machota is a staff writer covering the Dallas Cowboys for The Athletic. He previously covered the Cowboys for The Dallas Morning News. He's a Detroit native and graduate of Wayne State University. Follow Jon on Twitter @jonmachota
