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On Aug. 12, my training camp tour stopped at Ray Nitschke Field in Green Bay, Wis. Watching the Packers that Tuesday afternoon, a consistent thought kept coming to mind.
The Packers have a lot of good players, but they don’t have a transformative one.
It appears Brian Gutekunst had the same belief.
On Thursday afternoon, Green Bay’s general manager traded for star defensive end Micah Parsons, giving up two first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark in return before giving Parsons a four-year, $188 million deal, including $136 million guaranteed.
It’s a meaningful haul and yet a meager one compared to what could have (and should have) gone to Dallas. In 2018, a week before the season began, the Raiders traded edge rusher Khalil Mack and a second-round choice to the Bears for two firsts, a third and a sixth-rounder.
At that point, Mack had played four seasons and amassed 40.5 sacks and 84 quarterback hits in Oakland despite never missing a game. In the same span for Dallas, Parsons notched 52.5 sacks and 112 quarterback hits. The Packers should have paid a heftier price, including multiple picks across the middle and later rounds. Instead, Dallas got fleeced in the blockbuster deal.
Parsons isn’t just a great pass rusher. He’s legitimately special. He has 177 pressures and 59 quarterback knockdowns since entering the league in 2021 as a first-round pick from Penn State. For context, Myles Garrett has 171 pressures and the same amount of knockdowns in that span. The difference is Garrett was in his fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh seasons, respectively—his prime, something Parsons is just now entering.
This isn’t the first time the Packers have landed a generational pass rusher to turn them into a contender. In 1993, free agency arrived in the NFL and of all the available players, Eagles defensive end Reggie White was the best. White dominated for Philadelphia with 124 sacks across eight years.
Yet, entering his age-32 season, the Eagles decided to let White test the open market. He eventually stunned the NFL world, signing with the Packers on a four-year, $17 million deal, joining a team with one postseason win in 25 years.
Parsons isn’t joining a team long on hope but short on credentials. Instead, he will be joining a Packers squad that has been to the playoffs five of the past six years, including two trips to the NFC title game. During Jordan Love’s two-year stint as the starting quarterback, Green Bay has won 20 regular-season games while advancing to the postseason on both occasions.
Now, with Parsons leading the defense and an offense loaded with young, ascending assets, including rookie first-round receiver Matthew Golden and running back Josh Jacobs, who totaled 1,329 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns last season, the Packers suddenly appear poised to challenge not only in the tough NFC North but the conference at large.
While having a great quarterback is typically a prerequisite for winning a Super Bowl, good ones have done so plenty when surrounded by the right talent. Jalen Hurts is terrific, but he’s never been a first-team All-Pro, or thrown for 4,000 yards or 25 touchdowns in a season. Matthew Stafford is a borderline Hall of Famer, but he’s been named to only two Pro Bowls in 16 years while never achieving All-Pro status.
However, almost every Super Bowl champion has something in common: a great pass rusher.
Looking at the history of NFL champions, the last team to win a Super Bowl without a dominant presence on the front four was the 2018 Patriots, led by Trey Flowers with 7.5 sacks. Since then, the Super Bowl champions have had either Chris Jones, Shaquil Barrett, Aaron Donald or Jalen Carter to anchor a quality pass rush.
To this point, Love has proven to be capable. In 2023, he threw for 4,159 yards and 32 touchdowns before leading the Packers to a 48–32 wild-card win over Parsons’s Cowboys before narrowly losing the following weekend to the top-seeded 49ers in Santa Clara, Calif.
If Love can replicate those numbers instead of the injury-plagued ones he posted last year (3,389 yards and 25 touchdowns), the Packers will have an offense scary enough to compete with anybody.
With Parsons, it’s the defense that can lead the way. The Packers haven’t had a player with double-digit sacks since 2020, when Za’Darius Smith had 12.5 for the 13-win NFC North champions. Parsons has had double-digit sacks every year of his career, and with the highest-paid defensive player of all-time taking tons of attention from opposing offenses, don’t be surprised if fellow edge rusher Rashan Gary cracks the same company.
Up front, Green Bay goes from an underwhelming pass rush featuring a quartet of former first-rounders in Devonte Wyatt, Lukas Van Ness, Gary and Clark to an overwhelming one. Parsons has a case alongside Garrett and others as the league’s best edge rusher, while Gary and Wyatt can now settle into more fitting roles along the line.
This should be a perfect marriage of talent and scheme, with coordinator Jeff Hafley, who came to the Packers ahead of last season after spending four years as the head coach with Boston College. Hafley relies heavily on a four-man rush. In 2024, only the Jaguars had a lower blitz rate than Green Bay’s 17.3%. Without a player such as Parsons, the Packers were 16th in pressure rate at 22.1%. Expect that number to increase.
Parsons could have the same impact as White: A shocking addition to a good team, eventually making it a legendary unit.
No longer do the Packers have only good players. Rather, they’ve found another great one.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why Micah Parsons Can Transform the Packers From Good to Great Like a Previous Legend.