Micah Parsons had never experienced a losing record with the Dallas Cowboys or at Penn State and had no reason to think his fourth NFL season would be any different.
Even after a tough and surprising blowout loss to Green Bay in a wild-card playoff game last season, the star edge rusher thought the team would regroup, reset, and try again.
Then the Cowboys faced more big losses. They were blown out at home by New Orleans and Detroit early in the season while mostly healthy. Then Parsons and fellow rusher DeMarcus Lawrence got injured, followed by quarterback Dak Prescott.
From there, three key players with All-Pro talent ended up on season-ending injured reserve, and Parsons had to face the reality of his first losing record after a 41-7 blowout loss to NFC East champion Philadelphia on Sunday.
The Cowboys (7-9) finish the season on Sunday at home against Washington, the other playoff team in the division. The Commanders are coached by Dan Quinn, the former Dallas defensive coordinator who helped shape Parsons into one of the NFL’s best defenders.
“Definitely not what I envisioned, definitely not what I hoped for,” said Parsons, who missed four games due to a high ankle sprain while Lawrence never returned from a foot injury suffered in the same game, a Week 4 win over the New York Giants.
“Coming off a devastating playoff loss and you say, ‘Hey, I’m just going to get the same team back, and we kind of know what it’s going to look like, what the team’s going to be like.’”
“But you say there’s other teams who are fully healthy and they’re not where we’re at right now,” Parsons said. “I’m going to take that as a grain of salt and use that as motivation to go toward next year.”
After the Cowboys’ 48-32 loss to the Packers last January, there was doubt about coach Mike McCarthy’s future. Now, the uncertainty is about his expiring contract.
Executive vice president of personnel Stephen Jones said on Monday the Cowboys wouldn’t discuss McCarthy’s future until after the game against the Commanders.
Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, the former Minnesota head coach who replaced Quinn, came in on a one-year contract, so his future is also uncertain.
The defense, which struggled to adjust to his scheme early in the season, got better later on. Parsons spoke positively of Zimmer as the season went on, someone who had spent a decade on the Dallas staff in the 1990s and 2000s.
McCarthy has avoided questions about his future all season, and that is unlikely to change this week.
“I mean, that’s in eight days, you know,” McCarthy said when asked to reflect on having just his fifth losing record in 18 seasons with Dallas and Green Bay, where he won the Super Bowl to cap the 2010 season. “I’m here to finish the race. That’s my mindset and that’s the team’s mindset.”
