This first appeared as the cover story for the 2026 Packers Yearbook. It is being republished online for all packers.com readers.
GREEN BAY – Micah Parsons could've chosen any number of crunch-time, game-clinching sacks as his favorite play from his first season with the Green Bay Packers.
The fact he didn't in an exclusive interview for this cover story perhaps speaks to how his perspective on the game of football has changed, if only partially, through a long and arduous recovery from reconstructive knee surgery, which has been unquestionably the toughest challenge of his NFL career.
His choice for favorite play came in Week 12 against Minnesota at Lambeau Field, right after he had a sack of his own in the third quarter. On the next snap, Parsons ran a stunt with defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt, looping around his teammate from the outside and bulldozing the Vikings' center and guard, which cleared a path for Wyatt to bring down QB J.J. McCarthy inside the 5-yard line.
"He'd been wanting me to run this game with him all year," Parsons said, referring to the stunt. "I didn't make the play, but I kinda caused the play, and I would say that's probably my favorite, because in that moment, it wasn't about me. It wasn't about anyone, you just see everyone celebrating. It was like this mass wave."
Those moments of on-field joy and celebration are what Parsons dreams about as he grinds away on his rehab, a nine-month process that will get him back on the field most likely in October sometime, after the 2026 season's first handful of games.
In the interim he's had plenty of time to ponder what this difficult chapter will mean within the full story of his career.
First and foremost, it's the type of obstacle he's never faced before.
"All up until Dec. 15, it had been pretty easy," Parsons said, recalling the day after his knee buckled while chasing Broncos QB Bo Nix. "But now it's changed."
Parsons became the first NFL player since sacks became official in 1982 to post at least a dozen sacks in each of his first five seasons. He earned four All-Pro honors and five Pro Bowl selections along the way.
Now, even the most mentally tough player many of his teammates have encountered, who trains beyond the point of exhaustion and will play every snap of a 15-play drive without thinking twice, admits there's natural doubt as to whether he'll be the same player again. But he doesn't let it linger.
"The only way to beat it is to work," he said. "Like, if I didn't work out every day, if I didn't try to do something to make myself better every day … if I don't come back, who am I to blame?
"The only way to eliminate that is through preparation and work, and every time I feel a little better and I'm getting stronger, I'm like, 'Oh yeah, I'm going to be back,' and that's a special kind of power right there."
Speaking of blame, the Packers didn't want to pin their late-season collapse on Parsons' absence, but the correlation was undeniable. Green Bay didn't win another game after Parsons was helped off the field in Denver, and all those sacks he racked up in the fourth quarter to help seal victories over the Cardinals, Steelers, Giants and Lions were missing when the Bears rallied late twice in a span of four weeks to hand the Packers division-altering and season-ending losses.
Parsons admitted "it was real tough" to watch the ending unfold that way, but in the same breath he's thankful for the new contracts handed to General Manager Brian Gutekunst and Head Coach Matt LaFleur so he's coming back to the same regime he joined via that blockbuster trade with the Cowboys at the end of training camp last summer.
"The people that got me here and made this place even more special … I'm just grateful we got a second opportunity," he said. "And I don't want to waste it."
Which brings Parsons to his somewhat new perspective on the game as he works to return to it – taking everything one step at a time, enjoying the camaraderie, and bringing young teammates along.
Not that he didn't do all that during his decorated career at Penn State and four high-profile seasons in Dallas. But that's when football was easy, remember? Now, amidst a health struggle, he's more intentional about it, with a bigger picture to process.
"Going through the injury, everything taken away, getting rebooted, you're working to better yourself – mentally, emotionally, physically – in a way that can't really be described except every day I just want to be my best self," he said. "Because you can't make anybody else to be their best self unless you're your best self. Now I think my heart's in the right place, my mind's in the right place, and I can thank God for that."
His potential proteges certainly appreciate all he has to share. Parsons has been in 2023 first-round draft pick Lukas Van Ness's corner since he met him, professing belief in his emergence. Fellow edge rushers (and Packers 2025 draft picks) Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver worked out with Parsons at different times in the offseason away from Green Bay, soaking up not only knowledge and work ethic but encouragement from a willing mentor.
What that means for young players might be hard to quantify, but the hope is it'll manifest itself in ways that help the Packers' defense early this season while waiting for Parsons to return.
"Why would I not take that invite from a future Hall of Famer?" Sorrell asked rhetorically. "He told me he sees potential in me and wants to help me reach that next step. I'm thankful to him for seeing that in me and pushing me to be better."
Added Oliver: "He's one of the greatest players of our generation. To learn from him and train with him and see where his mind's at … gotta take him up on that."
Going back to last summer, Parsons' availability was the type of rare opportunity Gutekunst couldn't pass up. Having reached a contract impasse with the Cowboys, Parsons suddenly wasn't in their long-term plans, and the Packers swooped in, making the deal for two first-round draft picks plus Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark.
Sharing an agent with Parsons, Packers QB Jordan Love had done events with him in the past and joked about him coming to Green Bay. But it was still surreal even to Love when he caught the news on the ESPN ticker and let it sink in.
"It was one of those moments where you just sit there in awe," Love said. "Like, that is a huge move."
Such a seismic transaction jolted the franchise, and the kickoff to the season, with palpable energy. But then, having the rug ripped out from under the team's 9-3-1 start when Parsons went down was felt just as profoundly.
The five straight losses didn't change, and probably enhanced, what Parsons meant to the team. It makes his pending return more highly anticipated than his arrival, because the latter happened so quickly while there's a deeper understanding now of what the former will mean.
"He's been as advertised in terms of the player, and then as a leader on this football team," LaFleur said. "So I couldn't be more excited to have a guy like that."
Injury aside, Parsons has loved his time in Green Bay so far. It reminds him of where he grew up, in Harrisburg, Pa., and seeing the painted fences and tailgate parties on his way to work plays "like an old-school 'Friday Night Lights' theme" in his head.
That's another piece to the altered perspective prompted by all that's happened, good and bad, over the past year.
But the change isn't wholesale. There's at least one aspect to Parsons' view of the game and his place in it that is engrained, which is the overall responsibility he feels to his team as one of the league's best players. He'll take as much as anyone wishes to pile onto him, challenging comeback or not.
"Everything falls on me," he said. "If we don't succeed, it's my fault. If we don't win, it's my fault. If I don't perform to the ability they traded for, the player I was before I got injured, it's my fault. Everything falls on me.
"This is my burden."
He plans to make good on it.
"I just want to be the difference between winning and losing," he said. "I look at last year, we had good moments but overall failures, and some things you can't control. You can't really control injuries and circumstances.
"But I don't want my time here to be wasted on shoulda, coulda, woulda. I want to capitalize and do what they brought me here to do."
