Micah Parsons has spent his career overpowering opponents, but after his first season-ending injury, he’s facing a new adversary he can’t tackle: the fear of failure. As he works his way back from a torn ACL last season, the Green Bay Packers star is confronting the emotional toll of a recovery he has never experienced before.

“The fear of failure, the fear of letdown,” Parsons told Yahoo Sports in a phone interview this week. “In an instant, everything’s gone. And sometimes people don’t know how to get back.”

Initially, when injuries like this occur, the support system around a player is loud and immediate. Teammates, coaches, and fans of the green and gold reach out with encouragement. Yet, as weeks and months pass, even well-supported players can begin to feel alone, and then the fear begins to settle in.

Micah Parsons went down on December 14, when he was charging toward Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix during a play that seemed routine. Soon after, medical tests confirmed the ACL tear, and Parsons left in shock.

“You’re just kind of in shock, like, ‘Oh wow, am I hurt for real? What’s going on?” Parsons revealed. “Maybe you get another emotion of like, ‘Oh wow, that’s not that bad.’ And then here comes the surgery. Here comes the surgery part, and then that’s when it gets real.”

Of course, Micah Parsons is far from alone in this fight. According to Yahoo Sports, 560 NFL players landed on injured reserve during the 2025 season. While the league has long focused on physical rehab plans, the conversation is slowly shifting.

Teams are now placing greater importance on the mental side of recovery as well. Washington Commanders head coach Dan Quinn echoed that concern during last week’s NFL scouting combine.

“When it’s getting closer, that’s easier, because then there’s something close to returning to play,” Quinn said. “When it’s the initial start of it, and knowing, ‘I’m staring at six weeks, eight weeks, the entire season?’ Those are harder conversations, and you just want to make sure they’re checking in.”

A recent tragedy highlighted these potential consequences.

Rondale Moore’s demise ignited a mental health conversation

The NFL world was stunned on February 21 when former Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rondale Moore died from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. Moore had dealt with a difficult stretch in recent seasons. While no single explanation defines such tragedies, many around the league pointed to the physical setbacks he faced.

Preseason knee injuries in each of the last two years kept him off the field and forced him into back-to-back lost seasons. Veteran safety Jamal Adams, who has spent four seasons on injured reserve during his career, explained how deeply that process can affect players.

“I’m not jumping to conclusions, but let me say this. Fans and media be quick to label a player ‘injury prone’ [when] we don’t choose to get hurt,” Adams wrote. “Y’all don’t see the rehab, the pain, the mental drain it causes. The process can make you lose yourself. This sh-t is real. No matter how much support you get, you still gotta fight that battle alone.”

San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch also addressed mental health after the recent deaths of Moore and Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Marshawn Kneeland.

“[It] makes you communicate with everyone in your organization about our opportunity to affect these young men positively and to help them through things, struggles,” he said.

And Micah Parsons also spoke openly about the pressure players carry.

“We’d be fools to act like what we do isn’t enough pressure as it is,” Parsons said after Kneeland’s death. “We live in a pressure job where you’re expected to deliver, and you’re expected to play a certain way, and when you don’t, it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, man, it’s so sad,’ but a lot of people are hard on people. ‘You s–k. You s-ink. We hope you d-e.’ There’s a lot of harsh words and harsh things that get said about people.”

He continued that thought while stressing how athletes are still human beings behind the uniform.

“Sometimes you wish things were different because… obviously, it was Marshawn the person that we wish we could’ve been there for him, not Marshawn the uniform. So I’m just trying to be there for people more on the person side than the football side.”

Now, as Parsons navigates his own long rehab, the conversation around player pressure and mental health has never been more relevant.