After terrorizing him in his team’s Week 2 win over the New York Jets, Micah Parsons has come to the defense of Zach Wilson. While others have been quick to kick the young quarterback while he’s down, the Dallas Cowboys star defender, who also made similar remarks about Daniel Jones, wants others to practice patience with the talented, yet embattled third-year player out of BYU.
Parsons was exasperated talking about the ongoing quarterback dilemma in New York, stating that it was hard to even talk about the subject because of Aaron Rodgers’ injury (season-ending Achilles rupture) and who the future Hall-of-Fame quarterback is.
Parsons said, said on his podcast The Edge Thursday, that any comparisons made to Rodgers are unfair, especially in the sense that this team was built to be led by the 39-year-old, not Wilson. Parsons said that Wilson needs time to learn and grow, and this season was supposed to be a reset for Wilson before he got pushed back into the starting role after just four offensive snaps.
The 24-year-old Parsons, who was in the same draft class as Wilson, said that some of New York’s sideline antics can “get a little toxic.” He’s referring to Garrett Wilson having a rather animated conversation with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, who was sitting beside Wilson on the sideline during Sunday’s loss to the Patriots.
While Parsons continued to preach patience with Wilson, referring to the quarterback position as “not a walk in the park job,” Wilson has played below replacement level in relief of the injured Rodgers.
“Quarterback is one of the hardest positions in the NFL and you expect a third-year guy, who got benched last year and say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna take Aaron Rodgers,'” said Parsons. “His focus might’ve been there. We don’t know what his focus is, his mental is like when the whole trade happened, how guys treated him. And a lot goes into how much you want to give to this team.
“His team needs to give back to him, they need to pour into him so he can be the guy they want him to be.”
Parsons said if they can’t do that, there are free-agent quarterbacks like Cam Newton and Joe Flacco.
Parsons sends a pretty clear message to Wilson, but at the same time, if he doesn’t play significantly better against the Chiefs this Sunday, his days with the Jets could be numbered.