Micah Parsons was happy. Well, not so happy.
He stood next to a blue concrete wall inside Gillette Stadium Sunday night, pleased that the Dallas Cowboys had beaten the Patriots in overtime.
He said all the right things about teammate Trevon Diggs getting another interception.
He welcomed the bye week because the team needs it before an 11-game stretch that begins Halloween night at Minnesota Vikings Stadium and ends the second week of January in Philadelphia.
Yes, Parsons is happy with the Cowboys 5-1 5-1 record, but reporters noticed the scowl on the linebacker’s face during a postgame interview in Foxborough.
It’s wrong?
“I’m definitely mad at myself,” Parsons said, that scowl never going away.
“I want to play better. I want to make better plays and more impactful plays throughout the game. I’m not going to say I had a bad game, but there are some things I want to fix and I know I can do better and I have to.
The beauty of Parsons’ rookie season from the moment he stepped onto an NFL field in August is that he wants to participate in every play and make every play.
It’s something that has been inside him since his high school days and as a college student at Penn State.
Parsons is never satisfied.
And this is good.
“He wants to make all the plays,” assistant defense coach George Edwards said Tuesday.
“Things aren’t set up that way, so you just have to focus and focus on the opportunities, make the most of them,” Edwards explained.
Parsons leads the Cowboys in hitting the quarterback (10), is second in sacks (2.5) and tackles for loss of yards (3) and third in total tackles (30).
Going into the Patriots game, Parsons led the Cowboys with 33 pressure attempts at the New England quarterback.
It is clear that this team values what Parsons can do and accepts that it wants to do more, that is its competitive nature.