The Dallas Cowboys are looking for new leaders to save them from chaos. One of their former leaders believes he has some solutions.
Former Dallas linebacker and Hall of Famer Demarcus Ware told Pak Gazette Digital that he could look to join the Cowboys’ next coaching staff under one specific condition. He wants his former teammate Jason Witten to be the team’s head coach.
“I’m endorsing him being the head coach right now, he could be endorsing me coming in and some type of defensive coach,” Ware said in an exclusive interview. “There’s a 94% chance that if Jason Witten becomes head coach, Demarcus will be very interested in coming there too.”
Witten has been a head coach at the high school level since 2021, when he took over Liberty Christian High School in Argyle, Texas. Witten reportedly turned down multiple assistant coaching vacancies in the NFL and college programs to take the Liberty Christian job, according to ESPN.
Ware, meanwhile, served as a pass-rushing consultant on the Denver Broncos coaching staff in 2018.
If Ware were to join a hypothetical coaching staff led by Witten, Ware says he would prioritize managing current star linebacker Micah Parsons. Ware says the Cowboys defense has lacked the Parsons “lightning” it needs to compete for a Super Bowl.
“If he can be consistent on the field and play like he did at the beginning of the season, it will be like the electricity the team needs to wake up,” Ware said. “If we can get him to play defense consistently, they would win more games and take the pressure off him.” [quarterback] Dak Prescott.”
If a staff led by Witten and Ware materializes, Ware suggests Parsons will not podcast every week during the NFL season, as he has done since the start of the 2023 season when “The Edge With Micah Parsons” was released. in Bleacher. Report.
“He probably won’t do it during the season, I know he won’t,” Ware said, “because he’ll be too focused on getting to the quarterback and just wreaking havoc in the backfield.”
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Micah Parsons #11 of the Dallas Cowboys before a preseason game against the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium on August 11, 2024 in Inglewood, California. (Ronald MartÃnez/Getty Images)
Ware says having a weekly podcast during the season is not something he would have done in his career, especially at the beginning of it. Ware believes it’s a “difficult” balancing act for Parsons.
“That’s very difficult,” Ware said of Parsons’ overlapping obligations to football and the media. “There are some things you probably can’t say and they’ll ask you questions to pressure you into doing press.”
During an episode of Parsons’ podcast in November 2023, following a game against the Carolina Panthers in which he vomited on the sidelines, Parsons revealed that his teammates had pressured him to overdose on C4 Energy powder before the game, which caused pain in his chest. and eventual nausea. He ended the story by suggesting that he gave in to “peer pressure.”
In an episode from September of that year, while discussing the relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Parsons encouraged other NFL players to enter into relationships with high-status famous women, and specifically named Zendaya as someone they should pursue. . He said this even though Zendaya has been in a long-term relationship with Spider-Man actor Tom Holland since 2021.
Parsons has since faced pushback from his own teammate for his decision to podcast during the season. That criticism came during a separate podcast appearance by Cowboys safety Malik Hooker.
“My advice to Micah would be: Just make sure we’re good and stay where your feet are,” Hooker said in a June 27 interview on the “All Facts No Brakes” podcast. “Because if we’re out working and the run game is terrible, but you’re doing a podcast every week, and you know the run game is terrible, then what do you really care about? Do you care about the crowd that’s watching? Your podcast or Are you concerned about the success of our team and the Super Bowl we are trying to achieve?
When reporters pressed Parsons about the distraction his podcast could represent during training camp on Aug. 21, the star pass rusher became passionately defensive.
“I don’t think anyone really cares what I do on a Monday afternoon when I’m home with my kids,” he said. “So why would they care if I’m on Xbox? I think we all have our own free time. When they’re out of here are they thinking about me at home? I hope not.”
“I try not to say (anything) controversial, but everyone is always going to be drawn to something. They’re going to try to take one thing. We all have opinions. We’re not going to agree with what everyone says. That’s life.” “.
Dallas Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons, left, greets Tom Brady, right, on the field during warmups before the team’s preseason NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday August 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Hodde)
Parsons had his worst season as a professional in the following months. He posted career lows with 12 sacks, 43 tackles and 23 QB hits while playing in a career-low 13 games. He missed games due to injury for the first time in his NFL career. The team had its worst season since joining in 2021, finishing with a 7-10 record, resulting in the departure of head coach Mike McCarthy.
Now Parsons enters the offseason preparing for a coaching change for the first time as a professional. He is also seeking a contract extension that some experts have projected could surpass the largest for a defensive player in league history. That record is currently held by San Francisco 49ers star pass rusher Nick Bosa, who signed a five-year, $170 million contract in 2023.
Parsons’ current salary is currently unknown at Bleacher Report. As much as that is, it complements an NFL base salary of just $2.2 million in 2023 and $2.9 million in 2024. However, that number will increase to $24 million in 2025 under the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. Then he will be a free agent and could receive a payment well above that figure.
If Ware ends up on the Cowboys coaching staff, Parsons could end up having to sacrifice his Bleacher Report salary while his NFL base salary increases.
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Dallas Cowboys outside linebacker Micah Parsons (11) celebrates in front of Washington Football Team running back Antonio Gibson (24) after sacking quarterback Taylor Heinicke (4) in the first half of a game NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, on Sunday, December 26. , 2021. (AP Photo/Roger Steinman)
Still, Ware suggests he wouldn’t have a problem with Parsons doing a podcast in the off-season.
“Having a podcast, doing that kind of stuff, I just won’t do it during the season. Because I’m completely focused on football, winning games and getting to championships, but afterward, we can talk as much as we want.” whatever sport, whatever we’re doing,” Ware said.
“When I win a lot, I can talk a lot.”
Ware believes the Cowboys defense has lacked focus late in the season and knows the consequences of losses to the Giants.
Ware’s approach with Parsons is just one part of his broader perspective on the Cowboys defense and what he would try to bring to the staff as a coach.
“Staying focused at the end of the season when it’s important,” Ware responded when asked what the Cowboys defense has been lacking in recent years. “Because usually most of the distractions happen at the end of the season because you’re playing…everyone is reaching out to you.”
Ware learned the consequences of a lack of focus before the playoffs during his playing career with the Cowboys. For him, he says the toughest playoff moments he experienced were big losses to the New York Giants.
“Toughest losses in the playoffs? Are you kidding me? Both losses to the Giants!” Ware said. “Then they won the Super Bowl and that was probably one of the hardest things.”
The Cowboys lost to the Giants in the 2007 NFC divisional round, when the Cowboys were 13-3 and favorites to reach the Super Bowl, while the Giants were a 10-6 wild card team. The Giants won 21-17, en route to a historic victory in Super Bowl XLII over Tom Brady and the undefeated New England Patriots.
Eli Manning of the New York Giants dives for a first down against the Dallas Cowboys during the NFC divisional playoff at Texas Stadium on January 13, 2008 in Irving, Texas. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)
Former Dallas quarterback Tony Romo threw a game-ending interception in the final seconds to seal the game, and came under heavy scrutiny for failing to come away with a win after he was seen vacationing in Cabo, Mexico with his then-girlfriend Jessica Simpson, during the team’s first-round bye week. Witten was on vacation with them.
But Ware believes the time off was detrimental to the entire team, not just Romo and Witten.
“I don’t think it was about the travel, it was about the rest,” Ware said. “We have what we call mojo, and no matter what the teams do, you have that factor. We had it. But when you take time off, sometimes a team can lose that… we should have practiced every day alone.” to keep our minds and bodies alert, but something really light instead of sitting around or taking a vacation. Because when we returned I realized that something was missing and that was the advantage we had.
In 2011, the Giants and Cowboys met in the final week of the regular season with a division title on the line. The Giants won that game 31-14, en route to another Super Bowl championship against Brady and the Patriots.
Ware left the Cowboys for the Denver Broncos in 2014 and won the first and only ring of his career in Super Bowl L a year later.
The Cowboys haven’t been to a Super Bowl since the 1995 season.
But Ware could have a chance to help break that drought if the Cowboys hire Witten as their next head coach.
