Mike McCarthy laments Micah Parsons' missed opportunities as star skips OTAs

Mike McCarthy has absolutely no doubts that Micah Parsons will be ready to go when training camp comes around. That said, the Dallas Cowboys head coach would definitely prefer that the star edge rusher be with the team for OTAs.

Parsons returned to the Star on Wednesday after spending most of the Cowboys’ offseason program away from the team doing personal workouts, but even in his return, he didn’t practice. The former first-round pick arrived in Frisco for his media obligations like photographing headshots and recording pre-game animations. Still, he didn’t stick around to hit the field with his teammates.

Though McCarthy has been supportive of Parsons’ time away, like during his overseas trip to China and Japan, the skipper admitted Thursday that the defender is missing opportunities to work, especially with new defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer.

“Micah looks to be in really good shape, but you know, it’s a new defense, so we’ve got work to do,” McCarthy said. “He’s engaged. We’ll be ready when it’s time. I have confidence in him.”

“I think anytime you have a chance to be together it’s an opportunity to improve whether it’s in the mental realm, the physical realm, which is limited obviously at this time of year, and the emotional connection and so forth. It’s a long year,” he added. “Training camp is really the heightened focus for all of that, but yeah, it’s definitely an opportunity that’s been missed.”

Zimmer excited to work with ‘dynamic’ Parsons

New defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer is excited to get to work with the star who accumulated 40.5 regular-season sacks in three seasons. The Cowboys assistant opened up about Parsons and his special set of skills last week.

Despite his dominance, Zimmer understands the trick to make Parsons the most effective edge rusher he can be is how he moves him around and the matchups he creates week to week.

“We were sitting up there again this morning talking about other things we can do with him,” Zimmer said Tuesday. “He’s such a dynamic player that, I said this the other day: ‘Offenses are always going to know where he’s at.’ They’re going to turn protections to him, have the back help chip no matter what it is.

“In a lot of the games he played last year that I watched, the offenses had a good scheme where they get two tight ends on him and all those things. So, we’re going to obviously move him around, do different things with him, but we’re going to use him some ways where we’re getting the protection turned the way we want it turned and able to win on the other side. Sometimes, we’re going to try to overload a protection where he gets a one-on-one.”