The Dallas Cowboys are looking for new leaders to save them from disarray. One of their old leaders believes he has some solutions.

Former Dallas linebacker and Hall of Famer Demarcus Ware told Pakinomist Digital that he might look to join the next Cowboys coaching staff under a certain condition. He wants his former teammate Jason Witten to be the team’s head coach.

“I’m vouching for him right now to be the head coach, he might vouch for me to come over and kind of the defensive coach,” Ware said in an exclusive interview. “There’s a 94% chance that if Jason Witten becomes the head coach that Demarcus is very interested in coming over 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 several assistant coaching openings at 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 dealing with current star linebacker Micah Parsons. Ware says the Cowboys’ defense has lacked the “lightning” from Parsons that it needs to compete for a Super Bowl.

“If he can stay consistent on the field and play like he’s playing 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 to consistently play 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 not do 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 do that 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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Ware says having a weekly podcast during the season is not something he would have done in his career, especially early in it. Ware believes it’s a “tough” balancing act for Parsons.

“It’s very difficult,” Ware said of Parsons’ overlapping football and media commitments. “There are some things that you probably can’t say and questions that will be asked to push you to do press.”

During a November 2023 episode of Parsons’ podcast, after a game against the Carolina Panthers in which he vomited on the sideline, Parsons revealed that his teammates had pressured him to overdose on C4 Energy powder before the game, which gave him chest pains. and possibly nausea. He ended the story by suggesting he bowed to “peer pressure.”

On 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 female celebrities, specifically naming Zendaya as someone they should pursue. He said this despite the fact that Zendaya has been in a long-term relationship with Spider-Man actor Tom Holland since 2021.

Parsons has since received backlash from his own teammate over his decision to do a podcast during the season. That criticism came during a separate podcast appearance by Cowboys safety Malik Hooker.

“My advice would be to Micah, it would be: Just make sure we’re comfortable and we’re 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 running game is terrible, but you’re doing a podcast every week — and you know the running game is terrible — what do you care about? Do you care about the audience watching your podcast or do you care about our team’s success and the Super Bowl that we’re trying to get to?”

When Parsons was pressed by reporters about the distraction his podcast could pose during training camp on Aug. 21, the star pass rusher became passionately defensive.

“I don’t think anybody really cares what I’m doing on a Monday afternoon when I’m at home with my kids,” he said. “So why should they care if I’m on Xbox? I think we all get our own free time. When you’re away from here, do you think about me at home? I hope not.

“I’m not trying to say (anything) controversial, but everybody’s 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 everybody 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 professional in the months that followed. He posted a career-low 12 sacks, 43 tackles and 23 QB hits while playing in a career-low 13 games. He missed games with the 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, which resulted in the departure of head coach Mike McCarthy.

Now, Parsons enters the offseason preparing for a coaching change for the first time as a pro. He’s also seeking a contract extension that some pundits have predicted 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 through 2023.

Parsons’ current salary with Bleacher Report is currently unknown. As much as that is, it supplements an NFL base salary of just $2.2 million in 2023 and $2.9 million in 2024. However, that figure will jump to $24 million in 2025 under the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. Then he becomes a free agent and could be paid well north of that number.

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 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 kinds of things, I just don’t want to do them during the season. Because I’m focused on football and winning football games and making the championships, but afterwards we can talk all we want about whatever sport , whatever it is that 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 ramifications of gruesome losses to the Giants

Ware’s approach to Parsons is just one part of his larger view of the Cowboys’ defense and what he would try to bring as a coach to the staff.

“Staying focused at the end of the season when it matters,” Ware replied when asked what the Cowboys’ defense has lacked in recent years. “Because most upsets usually happen at the end of the season, because you’re balling… everybody’s got their hands on you.”

Ware learned the consequences of a lack of pre-playoff focus during his career with the Cowboys. For him, he says the most difficult playoff moments he experienced were trailing losses to the New York Giants.

“Toughest playoff losses? Are you kidding me? Both 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 reach 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 victory 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 not delivering a win after he was spotted vacationing in Cabo, Mexico with his then-girlfriend Jessica Simpson, during the team’s first round bye week. Witten was on holiday with them.

But Ware believes the layoff 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 it … we just had to practice every day. 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 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 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 the drought if the Cowboys hire Witten as their next head coach.