Green Bay Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons remains in rehab mode despite being eligible to practice and return to action. The pass rusher won't play in Sunday night’s showdown against his former team, the Dallas Cowboys.
For Parsons, the timeline was never about when he was eligible to return; it was about when his knee and body told him he could play full-bore without worrying about re-injury to the knee or elsewhere.
"The biggest thing that people worried about with me, they're like, 'Man, why ain't he back yet?'" he said this week on "The Edge with Micah Parsons" podcast. "If the Super Bowl was this week, I'm playing in the Super Bowl. But it's just about me making sure I have all the small things fixed first."
Parsons underscored that the main concern isn't injuring the repaired ACL again, but rather all the things that could go wrong by pushing to return early.
"What a lot of people don't figure out is it's not just the ACL," he said. "It's like, why did the ACL happen? What was weak? Because it all works together. It's a chain, right? And throughout the history of ACL, they notice if you come back early, there tends to be an overcompensation injury on the other side. ... Throughout just this year, we've seen injuries across the league, coming off ACL or coming off injuries where it was like a soft tissue injury, a core muscle injury, ankle injury, so they were just like, 'We're just gonna make sure everything is right before [you return].' Because everyone knows, it's like, what's the point of getting me back for four weeks, and then next thing you know, my groin bothering me, now I have a core muscle [injury], now I'm missing [time]?
"It's about making sure we do everything right."
We often see players push to return early, only to suffer another injury or three. Some never fully get back to form until the year following the year back.
Yes, some players, particularly at positions that require less explosiveness or cutting to thrive, can come back early, but it's not the norm. Every body is different and reacts in its own way.
During the offseason, when Parsons underscored that he wouldn't be ready to start the season, many assumed he would be back for the Week 6 tilt against the Cowboys, his former club, from which he'd forced a trade after contract talks went sour.
Parsons said any rivalry he might have with Jerry Jones' club takes a back seat to his health.
"So many people wanted me to be back for that game to make the game bigger than what it was," he said. "It's just another Sunday Night Football game against two good teams. It's not about me. I think that probably let people down. 'Oh, Micah, he's gonna wanna be back for the Dallas game.' No, I'm in that phase of life where I just wanna be healthy again. That's it.
"I don't care about the team I left or the team they think I want my revenge against. I don't need revenge. I just need two healthy knees to do what I love to do."
Parsons has said all offseason that he values being fully healthy at the back end of the season over being semi-healthy for an early return. He and the Packers are sticking to that timeline.
