Despite cleared recovery milestones, the Green Bay Packers are remaining cautious with their star pass-rusher. When will Micah Parsons return to practice?
Micah Parsons will not be returning to practice this week for the Green Bay Packers. This is even though he's eligible to start practicing after starting the 2026 season on the Physically Unable to Perform list.
In fact, he's been eligible for a few weeks now. According to the new PUP rules, Parsons can't officially return until at least the Week 5 game against the Chicago Bears, but he was eligible to start practicing after Week 2.
The star EDGE tore his ACL in Green Bay's Week 15 game against the Denver Broncos last December, and it has now been nine months since that injury. There are no hard-and-fast rules for a return from the Packers' perspective outside of that nine-month threshold. When it comes to torn ACLs, that's the recovery timeline that they like to adhere to.
That means two green lights have been illuminated as far as getting Parsons back onto the practice field, but that's not going to happen here in Week 4, according to head coach Matt LaFleur.
"No setbacks. It's just part of the process. He's got to get cleared," LaFleur told the media on Monday, per ESPN's Rob Demovsky.
This is not a huge shocker, of course. Parsons has mentioned a few times that a realistic date for his return to the field would be Green Bay's October 18 game against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6.
If we're looking at Christian Watson's recovery timeline from his torn ACL as a guideline, he returned to practice 19 days before the Packers officially activated him to the active roster. Watson is a great athlete, but even he's not the level of super-athlete that Parsons is, so perhaps the star pass-rusher won't need 19 days to get ready for that game against the Cowboys — if that is indeed his target return date.
There's a scenario in which the Packers can bring Parsons back to practice after Week 4's game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which would give him two weeks of practice to ramp up before that Sunday Night Football contest with the Cowboys.
One has to wonder if that could be the plan. One also has to wonder, though, why in the heck Parsons would rush himself back to play for a Packers team that is currently 1-2, with losses to the New York Jets and Atlanta Falcons.
This is a team that has shown no heart or fight through three weeks, and if anything, Parsons is known for his heart and fight.
Perhaps he'll look at it as his attitude being the missing ingredient needed on the field for the Packers. Perhaps he just misses football and wants to get out there with his teammates.
He's always been clear that his recovery and the length of it have more to do with helping the Packers in the long term, though. It's about winning the Super Bowl, not winning games in October, and this team has looked nothing like a Super Bowl contender over the first few weeks of the season.
In fact, the Packers look closer to a bottom-feeder than a playoff contender right now.
Maybe the smart move for a guy like Parsons, and the Packers for that matter, is to wait and see how things go against the Buccaneers before committing to a return. Heading into Week 5 against the Bears at 2-2 feels a bit different than heading into that game at 1-3 with losses to...checks notes...Carson Wentz, Michael Penix Jr. and Jalon Daniels.
Remember, Baker Mayfield is dealing with a dislocated thumb, which will keep him out of this Week 4 game. If the Packers lose to Daniels, an undrafted free agent rookie quarterback, than the sky really may be falling for Green Bay.
And why would Parsons want to rush back for that?
