Micah Parsons generated a lot of online chatter with his comments after the 49ers' blowout win over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday at Levi's Stadium, telling reporters he still didn't think San Francisco was playing at a "higher level" than his team.
The star pass rusher expanded on that take Monday during his podcast, "The Edge with Micah Parsons," explaining why he believes the statement to be true.
To refresh, Parsons said after the 49ers' 42-10 rout: “I don’t think they’re really a higher level than us. I think we’re the same caliber playoff team. Same talent, same standards as them. I just feel like we need to really reconsider some things, get together and fix some things. I feel like it was a few plays away. The score don’t really shape what really happened out there.”
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While Parsons blamed the loss on the Cowboys' beating themselves after the game, he further clarified on his podcast that it all came down to a lack of preparation.
"When I say that, you look at the game and we talk about the Cowboys and who we want to be, and how great we want to be, it just wasn't there all around and in all phases of the game," Parsons said. "I felt like, almost, we weren't put in position to succeed in some instances."
Parsons' latest comments are a stark contrast to what Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy and quarterback Dak Prescott said after the game. Both were stunned by the loss, and said they felt like the team's preparation for the game was more than adequate.
San Francisco 49ers
Well, Parsons would disagree after the 49ers won by the biggest margin of victory in their historic rivalry with the Cowboys. San Francisco out-gained Dallas by over 200 total yards, won the turnover battle 4-1 and benched its starters early in the fourth quarter.
"It was so many various things that -- we were beating ourselves, and then it was like, you add the rest into it ... It is what it is. It was just one of them games; you've got to learn from it," Parsons said, before doubling down on his postgame comments. "If you look at the talent scale from each one, I think we match up well with them. I just don't think we played with the same standard that [the 49ers] played with yesterday, and it started with the preparation."
San Francisco met every Dallas play with the perfect counterattack, Parsons added, and he said the Cowboys were out-schemed on all fronts.
"My hat's off to Kyle Shanahan and how he prepared," Parsons said. "I definitely think he was prepared for us. I don't think we were put in a position to be prepared for what they have."