Jerry Jones addresses Micah Parsons' holding call drought
Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons‘ holding call drought extended to 38 quarters on Sunday as the star once again failed to draw a favorable penalty from the NFL officials against the Miami Dolphins. Despite some pretty clear photographic evidence to the contrary, the league’s referees have failed since October to call opposing offensive linemen for holding when Parsons is involved.
Team owner Jerry Jones addressed the issue on Tuesday during his appearance on 105.3 The Fan, but failed to assign blame to the league.
“I don’t think the intent is to take a player of his skill and limit him,” Jones said. “… There’s no question that Micah is having restrictions that if turned loose would result in a sack of the quarterback.”
“They won’t call a holding penalty in a certain range of holding … usually if they don’t think the player would’ve gotten to the quarterback to begin with,” Jones added. “… That doesn’t work for Parsons because he’s about to get there almost all the time. Anything that just limits him should be a hold.”
After a no-sack, two-tackle performance against the Bills, Parsons bounced back against the Dolphins. He had seven tackles with a tackle for loss and half a sack in the 22-20 loss against Tua Tagovailoa‘s squad.
After the game, the former first-rounder took to social media to complain. He shared a photo of two Dolphins linemen grabbing him and wrote, “Free me dawg! Whatever I did to the officials I’m sorry!”
Parsons frustrated by NFL’s refs
After the win against the Eagles in Week 14, Parsons insisted that he wouldn’t start flopping to draw the refs’ eyes to him.
“It’s frustrating. I kind of wish people saw it the way I do. I kinda tell the ref, ‘If you just look at me the whole time, you don’t even have to look anywhere else, it’s right there in front of you,’” Parsons said.
“I’m not into dramatics, man. I just want to kill this guy, whether he got to hold me, whether you’re going to see it. There’s going to be another play. There’s going to be another opportunity. You’ve just got to know when to take it. I’m not going to learn how to be like these basketball players and quarterbacks where I just flail to the ground because some guy is holding me. Then, I can miss the sack because I’m flailing to the ground.”
With two games to go in the regular season, Parsons has reached the 13-sack mark that he hit in each of his first two seasons. He also has eight tackles for loss and a forced fumble this season.