The Cowboys face the Buccaneers on Sunday, marking the second time in as many years Dallas will open its season against Tom Brady. And one of the Cowboys’ top players, star linebacker Micah Parsons, is both awestruck and resentful about it. Previewing Week 1’s “Sunday Night Football” showdown on Thursday, the reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year had high praise for Brady, who’s entering his 23rd NFL season at age 45, even while casting the quarterback as the ultimate villain.
“You just see his competitive nature,” Parsons said, per the Dallas Morning News. “He has that fire inside of him. He looks to kill you. He wants to step on your throat like [you’re] a roach. That’s what you look for in competitors. That’s why, if [you’re] a real competitor, you look up to Tom Brady. You look up to Kobe [Bryant] — that ‘Mamba’ mentality. You look up to Michael Jordan.
“We got to get him out this league,” Parsons joked. “He’s been dominating this league too long.”
The Cowboys linebacker, of course, was just as dominant in his own role in 2021, almost single-handedly pacing Dallas’ defensive attack with 13 sacks. Going into Year 2, he’s got his eyes on the NFL’s single-season sack record. But Brady and the Buccaneers got the best of America’s Team the last time the two contenders met, with Tampa Bay winning last year’s opener.
Parsons has high hopes for Sunday’s rematch, pointing to epic superhero stories as evidence that even the biggest winners have to take their lumps — and, once again, both building up and challenging Brady’s legend.
“I done seen Thor get beat up. I seen Captain America get beat up. Every superhero gets beat up,” he said, per the News. “But one thing they always do is they always get back up and they find a way to get to their destination. So Tom may have a Kryptonite, he may not. He definitely gets beat up and he gets back up.”
