Micah Parsons has circled the date for months. The Green Bay Packers’ star pass rusher, sidelined since a knee injury last December and placed on the physically unable to perform list before Week 1, has targeted a return for the Packers’ Week 6 meeting with his former team, the Dallas Cowboys, at Lambeau Field.
Parsons made no secret of his goal when the schedule came out: be back for Sunday Night Football against the team that traded him. Whether he can actually line up against his old teammates on October 18 depends on getting back to practice over the coming days and clearing each step without a setback. Early projections at various points this fall guessed his debut might slip as late as November, which makes the current optimism notable — but the team has not committed to a date.
The Packers have felt his absence. Green Bay’s pass rush has had to manufacture pressure by committee, and the defense’s ceiling plainly rises with one of the league’s most disruptive edge players on the field. Coaches have balanced that need against the risk of rushing a franchise cornerstone back from a serious knee injury in the first season of his massive contract.
Before Dallas, Green Bay faces Chicago, and the first injury reports of the week showed a banged-up offensive line — three linemen signed last week are already being counted on. If Parsons practices this week, the countdown to the most personal game of his career officially begins.
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