The Dallas Cowboys are looking for new leaders to save them from disarray. One of their old leaders thinks he has some solutions.
Former Dallas linebacker and Hall of Famer Demarcus Ware told Fox News Digital he may look to join the next Cowboys coaching staff under a specific condition. He wants his former teammate Jason Witten to be the team’s head coach.
“I’m vouching for him right now to be head coach, he might vouch for me to come over and some kind of defensive coach,” Ware said in an exclusive interview. “There is a 94% chance that if Jason Witten becomes head coach, that Demarcus is very interested in coming over there as well.”
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 coach openings with NFL and college programs to take the Liberty Christian job, according to ESPN.
Meanwhile, Ware served as a pass-rush 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 the handling of current star linebacker Micah Parsons. Ware says the Cowboys’ defense has lacked the “lightning bolt” from Parsons that it needs to compete for a Super Bowl.
“If he can become consistently on the field and play like he plays at the beginning of the season, he’s like the electricity that the team needs to just wake up,” Ware said. “If we can get him consistently playing on defense, they would win more football games and take the pressure off [quarterback] Dak Prescott.”
If a staff led by Witten and Ware materializes, Ware suggests that Parsons won’t be doing a podcast every week during the NFL season, as Parsons has done since the start of the 2023 season, when “The Edge With Micah Parsons” launched on Bleacher Report.
“He probably won’t be doing it during the season, I know he won’t be,” 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 Martinez/Getty Images)
Ware says that having a weekly podcast during the season isn’t something he would have done in his career, especially early on. Ware believes it is a “hard” balancing act for Parsons.
“That’s very hard,” Ware said of Parsons’ overlapping football and media obligations. “There’s some things that you probably can’t say and questions that will be asked to sort of press you to make press.”
During one episode of Parsons’ podcast in November 2023, following a game against the Carolina Panthers in which he threw up on the sidelines, Parsons revealed that his teammates had pressured him into overdosing on C4 Energy powder before the game, which caused him chest pain and eventual nausea. He ended the story by suggesting he had caved to “peer pressure.”
In an episode in September of that year, while discussing the relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, Parsons encouraged other NFL players to pursue relationships with high-status celebrity women, and specifically named Zendaya as someone they should pursue, despite the fact that 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 over his decision to do an in-season podcast. That criticism came during a separate podcast appearance by Cowboys safety Malik Hooker.
“My advice would be for Micah, it would be: Just make sure we’re all right, and being 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’s terrible, but you’re doing a podcast every week — and you know the run game is terrible — then what are you really caring about? Are you caring about the crowd that’s watching your podcast, or are you caring about the success of our team, and the Super Bowl that we’re trying to reach?”
When Parsons was pressed by reporters about the distraction his podcast might pose during training camp on Aug. 21, the star pass rusher became passionately defensive.
“I don’t think no one really cares about what I’m doing on a Monday afternoon when I’m at home with my kids,” he said. “So, why would they care if I’m on Xbox? I think we all get our own free time. When y’all away from here, are y’all thinking about me at home? I would hope not.
“I try not to say (anything) controversial, but everyone always is gonna be drawn to something. They’re going to try to take one thing. We all have opinions. We’re not going to agree to 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, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Hodde)
Parsons went on to have his worst season as a pro in the months that followed. He put up career lows with 12 sacks, 43 tackles and 23 QB hits, while playing in a career-low 13 games. He missed games to injury for the first time in his NFL career. The team had its worst season since he joined in 2021, finishing with a 7-10 record, resulting in the departure of head coach Mike McCarthy.
Now Parsons goes into the offseason bracing for a coaching change for his first time as a pro. He is also seeking a contract extension that some experts have projected could exceed 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 deal in 2023.
Parsons’ current salary with Bleacher Report is currently unknown. However much it is, it is supplementing a base NFL salary of just $2.2 million in 2023 and $2.9 million in 2024. However, that number will jump to $24 million in 2025 under the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. Then he’ll be a free agent, and he could get paid far north of that number.
If Ware ends up on the Cowboys’ coaching staff, Parsons may end up having to sacrifice his Bleacher Report salary while his NFL base pay 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 an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Roger Steinman)
Still, Ware suggests he would have no problem with Parsons doing a podcast in the offseason.
“Having a podcast, doing those types of things, I just won’t do them during the season. Because I’m focused all on football and winning football games and making the championships, but afterwards, we can talk all we want to about whatever sports, whatever it is we’re doing,” Ware said.
“When I win a lot, I can talk a lot.”
Ware thinks the Cowboys’ defense has lacked late-season focus and knows about the consequences from haunting losses to the Giants
Ware’s approach with Parsons is just one part of his greater outlook on the Cowboys defense and what he would try to bring as a coach on staff.
“Staying focused at the end of the season when it matters,” Ware answered when asked what the Cowboys’ defense has lacked in recent years. “Because usually most of the distractions happen at the end of the season because you’re balling . . . everyone has their hand out to you.”
Ware learned the consequences of a lack of focus ahead of the playoffs during his playing career with the Cowboys. He says that the most difficult playoff moments he experienced were consequential losses to the New York Giants.
“The most difficult playoff losses? You kidding me? Both the losses to the Giants!” Ware said. Then they went on to win 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 make the Super Bowl, while the Giants were a 10-6 Wild Card team. The Giants won 21-17, en route to a historic Super Bowl XLII win 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 was heavily scrutinized for failing to deliver a win after he was seen on a vacation in Cabo, Mexico, with his then-girlfriend Jessica Simpson, during the team’s first-round bye week. Witten was on the vacation with them.
But Ware believes that the bye time off was detrimental to the entire team, not just Romo and Witten.
“I don’t think it was about the trip, it was about the break,” Ware said. “We have what we call mojo, and no matter what teams do, you have that ‘it’ factor. We had that. But when you take time off, sometimes a team can lose that . . . we should have practiced each and every day just to keep our minds and bodies sharp, but something really light instead of sitting or taking a vacation. Because when we went back, I could tell something was missing, and that was the edge that we had.
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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 went on to leave 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 have not been to a Super Bowl since the 1995 season.
But Ware might get the chance to help break that drought if the Cowboys hire Witten as their next head coach.
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