Anytime there’s a new star in the NFL, the league tries desperately to find the next version, especially when that star is a unique success story. That’s the case for Micah Parsons, who moved from off-ball linebacker to edge rusher with the Dallas Cowboys and is now the highest-paid defensive player in the sport with Green Bay.
Abdul Carter made his move from linebacker to edge rusher at Penn State, and naturally grabbed the mantle as the “next Micah Parsons.” Even Georgia’s Jalon Walker drew Parsons comparisons in last year’s draft as another hybrid off-ball-edge.
Now, in the 2026 NFL Draft, Ohio State’s Arvell Reese has been dubbed the “next Micah Parsons.” Unlike Parsons, who was selected No. 12 overall by the Cowboys, Reese is routinely mocked as high as No. 2 overall to the New York Jets. Expect, there’s one major problem: He’s not Micah Parsons. He might not even be close.
Just cause he plays the same role, doesn’t mean Arvell Reese is Micah Parsons
On Friday, Pro Football Focus’s Max Chadwick released his 10 boom-or-bust players in the 2026 NFL Draft. At the top of the list was Ohio State’s linebacker Arvell Reese, who he naturally aligned with Parson’s, Carter, and Walker.
Reese played 286 snaps at linebacker for the Buckeyes last season and 327 on the edge, racking up 69 tackles, 6.5 sacks, and 10 tackles for loss. However, the All-American recorded just 27 quarterback pressures all season and finished with a pass-rush win-rate of 13 percent. As Chadwick pointed out, those numbers do not compare favorably to his counterparts.
Final college season | pass-rush snaps | QB pressures | pass-rush | true pass-rush snaps win-rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Micah Parsons | 94 | 27 | 20.7% | 31.0% |
Abdul Carter | 350 | 66 | 22.6% | 35.1% |
Jalon Walker | 195 | 34 | 17.2% | 18.5% |
Arvell Reese | 119 | 26 | 13.0% | 27.2% |
Reese’s pass-rush win-rate on true pass rush snaps is certainly a good mark and better than Walker’s. However, even that number, which is Reese’s best among this sample, pales in comparison to Carter, who was a full-time edge his final year in school, and Parsons, who only rushed sparingly.
Reese has the versatility to play both off-ball linebacker and edge, which is something that, at this point, neither Parsons nor Carter do in the NFL. But the value of that versatility still pales in comparison to the value of an elite edge rusher, which Parsons and Carter both are. Reese doesn’t have much in his statistical profile that shows he’ll get to that level.
If Reese doesn’t win consistently enough to play on the edge full-time, or at least 75 percent of his snaps, or so, then the team that selects him early this spring will essentially be using their top 10 pick on a linebacker, and that’s a risky proposition.