Micah Parsons is eight months into rehabbing a torn ACL, still not medically cleared for contact, and he spent Friday night screaming “Green Bay sucks” inside a packed Soldier Field. He plays for Green Bay.
This was night two of Kanye West’s “Ye Live” run in Chicago, and Parsons wasn’t out there by himself. Jordan Love was standing right there, and the Post-Crescent counted a small crowd of other Packers taking in the show too. That’s a chunk of the roster watching Chief Keef, Big Sean, 2 Chainz, Rick Ross, Travis Scott, Common, and Kid Cudi rotate through a stage built around one guy’s ego.
Half the Packers roster turned a Friday off into a field trip.
Parsons is still not medically cleared after tearing his ACL and meniscus in his first season with Green Bay, and the team’s strong nine-month recovery rule all but guarantees he opens the season on PUP, missing at least four games. The realistic return date is Week 6, against Dallas, the team that traded him to Green Bay to begin with. None of that reads like a guy with room in his schedule for a two-night hip-hop variety show.
Fans clocked it anyway. Sportskeeda rounded up the reaction, plenty of it calling out Parsons for the fact that he joined the Green Bay sucks chant against his own team, on camera, in a crowd big enough that somebody’s phone was always going to catch it.
https://twitter.com/captaincaleb18/status/2096222205919043946
Fair point, honestly.
Except Parsons has been saying the right things about this rehab since before it started, and that complicates the pile-on. “The goal isn’t for me to go out there and rehurt myself trying to force myself to get back the first few games,” he said this offseason. “The goal has always been [to be available for the] playoffs.” A Friday night with teammates isn’t the same as skipping treatment, and nobody’s produced a shred of evidence he missed a session to be there.
https://twitter.com/PostCrescent/status/2096448358114087164
Parsons posted after the show that he was “still in shock,” called it the “greatest concert and variety” he’s ever seen, and said it was a “great night in chi town with some great guys.” Great guys who, it should be said, watched their teammate chant against their own employer and did not exactly pull him away from the mic. Somewhere in the Packers’ PR office, someone is staring at a laptop trying to figure out how to spin a team bonding trip that turned into a viral clip of the franchise’s best defender booing the franchise.
I still can’t decide if that’s the least self-aware thing an NFL player has done all year or the most honest one.
