Even after a bel0w-average NFL draft and shipping talent out of the wide receiver room, the Green Bay Packers‘ most significant question of the offseason overwhelmingly remains the health of superstar pass-rusher Micah Parsons.
Parsons spoke directly to his progress and his return timeline during an exclusive interview with Action Network this week.
“Man, it really just depends,” Parsons said of returning for the season-opener in early September. “I had a pretty severe injury. It just depends on how each phase goes for me.”
“But I would say, I do feel as if I’m ahead, or on track, to be there earlier in the season,” Parsons continued. “It’s just hard to really pinpoint where or how each phase is going to go. The first three months went good, but I gotta learn how to run again soon. I just finished learning how to walk again, so it’s just one of those things.”
NFC North Division Will Provide Tough Path Back to Playoffs for Packers
GettyGreen Bay Packers edge-rusher Micah Parsons.
Parsons’ ability to hit the ground running whenever he returns to the gridiron is going to prove paramount to Green Bay’s chances of competing in what is shaping up to be a highly competitive NFC North Division once again.
Only the Packers and the Chicago Bears made the playoffs last season, though all four North squads ended the campaign with winning records.
Green Bay leveraged its first-round picks in 2026 and 2027, including multiple-time Pro-Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark, in a trade with the Dallas Cowboys to secure Parsons just days before the start of the 2025 campaign.
Despite a lack of preseason preparation due to his contract holdout in Dallas, and then learning a new system on the fly after arriving in Green Bay already on the doorstep of the regular season, Parsons was able to muster a first-team All-Pro season on the strength of 12.5 sacks and 12 tackles for loss.
Packers Have No Regrets About Trade for Micah Parsons
GettyGreen Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst.
Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has zero regrets about dealing for Parsons last summer, even after he suffered an ACL tear in Week 15 that cost him the final three games of 2025 and may delete Parsons from the lineup for multiple contests to begin the upcoming campaign.
Gutekunst spoke directly to that in the context of not having a first-round pick at his disposal last weekend.
“With this particular pick, we got better a whole year earlier,” Gutekunst said. “I don’t think there’s any players that were in this draft that can compete with that one.”
Packers Need Micah Parsons Healthy, Productive to Contend Next Season
GettyPass-rusher Micah Parsons of the Green Bay Packers.
Beyond sacrificing a first-rounder in 2026, which is the top reason why draft analysts panned the Packers’ rookie class (Dane Brugler of The Athletic ranked it 26th out of 32 teams), Green Bay also cut into its ability to spend in free agency for several offseasons to come by inking Parsons to a four-year contract extension worth $186 million.
Parsons is going to impact the team’s 2027 draft class significantly as well, as Dallas will hold Green Bay’s first-rounder in those proceedings. Next year’s draft is reputed to be chalk full of elite talent across multiple premier position groups.
Even despite all that, there are few (if any) teams in the league that would not have made the same deal the Packers did for Parsons, or that would go back and change anything in the aftermath of his ACL injury.
But that could change if the 27-year-old can’t get back on the field with relative haste and regain his pre-injury form. Hence the balancing act facing Green Bay and Parsons of making sure he’s all the way ready to return, but not waiting too long that the season begins to slip away inside the first month of play.
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