Micah Parsons Quickly Could Become One of the NFL's Best Linebackers, Analyst Says

Football analyst Ross Tucker says former Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons' NFL upside is "sky-high."

Ross Tucker, a former NFL lineman and current national analyst, first watched Micah Parsons play football as a high school freshman. Tucker was so taken that he texted Andy Frank, his former Princeton teammate, to say, "You have got to check out this freshman."

Frank is the director of player personnel at Penn State, which soon offered Parsons a scholarship, signed him in 2017, developed him from high school defensive end to All-American college linebacker and said farewell to him in August. The whirlwind was quick and just as Tucker predicted.

"Before his junior year in high school, I went to practice and told Micah, 'You are a special, special player,'" Tucker said in a recent interview. "'You have five years to do everything right and your life will be changed forever.' It appears he's there."

Parsons, who announced in August that he would opt out of a potential 2020 season, is a certain first-round NFL draft pick at a position he has been playing for just two seasons. Daniel Jeremiah of NFL.com graded Parsons higher than three off-ball linebackers drafted in the first round last year.

And Pro Football Focus called Parsons the best NFL linebacker prospect since Boston College's Luke Kuechly, whom the Carolina Panthers selected ninth overall in 2012.

As a result, Tucker said, Parsons didn't have much left to prove, even though left Penn State after playing just 26 games.

"Everything you hear is that he’s a top 10 player [in the 2021 NFL draft], and I believe that," Tucker said. "Which is another reason he makes a decision like this. An off-the-ball linebacker is not going to be the No. 1, 2 or 3 pick. So he really didn't have anywhere to go but down, because he's already considered a top 5-10 pick."

Tucker is uniquely positioned to scout Parsons, having grown up in the same central Pennsylvania football community and having watched Parsons the past six years. Tucker, who played seven NFL seasons, now is a broadcast analyst and commentator, talking football at the Ross Tucker Football Podcast and on various national outlets.

To Tucker, Parson was among the five best high school players (and the best freshman) he has seen. Initially a defensive end at Central Dauphin High, Parsons began getting carries at running back after transferring to Harrisburg High, and "he looked like Jim Brown," Tucker said.

At Penn State, Parsons made the difficult transition from defensive end to linebacker look easier than it is. Coaches normally convert linebackers to ends, not vice versa, and Parsons learned how to play in space at Penn State, though that took time.

"He was maybe the best high school pass-rusher I've seen, so I was a little skeptical when Penn State moved him to linebacker as a freshman," Tucker said. "He did a lot of positive things, but you could tell he was just big and fast and running around out there. You could tell he didn't understand the position really well."

Still, Parsons led Penn State in tackles as a freshman (despite starting just one game) and developed into a skilled linebacker last season. He credited former Penn State middle linebacker Jan Johnson (another central Pennsylvania native) for helping him learn how to play the position.

In 2019, Parsons became the first sophomore to be named Big Ten linebacker of the year. And Tucker noticed that the tackles Parsons made 3-5 yard downfield as a freshman were being made closer to, or even behind, the line of scrimmage last season.

Against Michigan, for instance, Parsons made eight of his 14 tackles for gains of 1 yard or less. Imagine what he'll do with even more seasoning, Tucker said.

"I thought he made some big strides last year," Tucker said. "But what's really crazy about him is how much better he can get. I think playing next to Jan and being around Jan helped him quite a bit, learning just how much of an advantage you can get if you really do study and do the prep work during the week.

"The reason why he's such a good prospect is, he's good in coverage, he's good when he blitzes, he's good as a rusher and he's good against the run. But he still has a lot of untapped potential. We saw what he did last year, but he's only been playing off-the-ball linebacker for two years. He's only really had that visual for a couple of years, so the upside for him is sky-high. Because once he really has seen everything a thousand times, he could be one of the best linebackers in the NFL pretty early in his career."

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