Micah Parsons is one of the NFL’s most dominant defenders. As he works back from a torn ACL, he’s also in position to do something the Green Bay Packers have seen just once in their history.
NFL.com’s Grant Gordon ranked Parsons among his top 10 contenders for the 2026 Comeback Player of the Year award, slotting the star pass rusher at No. 5.
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Micah Parsons Named a Comeback Player of the Year Contender
Parsons landed on the list because of how his 2025 season ended. After arriving in a blockbuster trade from the Dallas Cowboys, he lived up to the hype, and then some.
“He posted 12.5 sacks in 14 games and was a first-team All-Pro, continuing the narrative that he’s one of the game’s greatest defenders, nay, players overall,” Gordon wrote.
Then came the injury. Parsons tore his ACL in Week 15 and later needed a procedure to repair his meniscus, an injury that will keep him out to start 2026.
Gordon laid out the best-case timeline, and it comes with a script only football could write.
“It appears the best-case scenario is that he returns in 2026 just in time for a showdown with his former team — the Dallas Cowboys — in Week 6,” Gordon wrote. “The football gods do love their drama, after all.”
Why a Parsons CPOTY Win Would Be Historic for the Packers
The bigger story is the company Parsons would join if he pulls it off. The award has become almost exclusively a quarterback honor in recent years, and defensive players have been shut out for a decade.
“The last defensive player to win CPOTY was Chiefs safety Eric Berry in 2015 — one year before wide receiver Jordy Nelson earned the honor and became the only Packers winner in history,” Gordon wrote.
That’s two pieces of history in one.
Parsons would be the first defensive winner since Berry took the award in 2015, ending a stretch dominated by comeback stories from passers like Joe Burrow, Joe Flacco and Geno Smith. He’d also become just the second Packer ever to win it, joining Nelson, who bounced back from his own torn ACL to lead the NFL in touchdown catches in 2016.
The path won’t be simple. Parsons opened camp on the physically unable to perform list and may not debut until the first month of the season, and coming back at an elite level in the same year as an ACL tear is far from guaranteed.
There’s more riding on it than an individual award. Green Bay lost four straight to close the regular season after Parsons went down, then blew a 21-3 lead in a wild-card loss to the Chicago Bears, a collapse that underlined how much the defense leaned on him. Getting a healthy Parsons back is central to the Packers’ hopes of contending in a loaded NFC.
Parsons has made his goal clear, telling reporters he’s set on returning and leading Green Bay back to the playoffs. If he does, and does it at the level he showed before the injury, it will be difficult for voters to keep him off their ballot.
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