Micah Parsons and the Green Bay Packers pass rush are ready to explode

For the first time since early in the season, the Packers pass rush finished plays for sacks against the Arizona Cardinals. This is a sign of things to come for Jeff Hafley's front.

The Green Bay Packers pass rush had been too close for too long. We don’t need any fancy qualifications or esoteric explanations about probabilities or positive regression. Even while teams were getting completions against this Packers defense, the pass rush was eating. Teams all but stopped trying to push the ball down the field, outside of the two quarters when Dak Prescott solved the matrix, because Micah Parsons, Rashan Gary, and this front can destroy gameplans on their own.

It’s obvious on the field.

“The best way to beat a quarterback is to put them on their back,” LaFleur quipped on Wednesday.

“I tell my team that all the time, because it’s pretty hard to throw the ball when you’re on your back.”

And that’s the part the Green Bay front had been missing. They were generating pressures at an elite rate. Despite missing a game with the bye, Parsons leads the NFL (or is 2nd depending on who is keeping the count) in pressures. As a unit, they’re fifth in pressure rate and pass rush win rate, while being seventh in pressure rate without having to blitz.

But they’re 22nd in converting pressures to sacks.