Football is a tough gig when entering your 12th year in the NFL; success isn’t as turnkey as it once was.

DeMarcus Ware is finding that out right now, as his body has instituted a mandatory snap count, and he has to make each one of them count.

“Right now,” Ware said on Afternoon Drive with Eric Goodman and Les Shapiro, “games that don’t count, why you gonna play – beat your body up – when you can crush it in the season?”

That’s the type of mentality Ware needs right now, and the Broncos are prudent enough to oblige. He’s not just dealing with an injury; he’s dealing with a back injury. Those don’t disappear with a healthy dosage of Icy Hot and a good night’s rest. They linger, and Ware’s has been lingering since last year.

He’s yet to set foot on the field as a player this offseason, whether at OTAs or training camp, and it’s for the better. While Ware admits that he could play tomorrow if he needed to, right now he’s best suited acting as a mentor to the Broncos’ young pass rushers.

“I’m doing a lot more teaching now, especially in the classroom,” Ware said. “We’ll watch film, and then on the breaks we have – we normally have a two-hour-and-thirty-minute break – we’ll go over the things that they did wrong, and what move they need to work on for their toolbox for the season.”

But it doesn’t stop there. To be one of the best pass rushers the game has ever seen, Ware needs to understand the offense, particularly offensive linemen, better than they do themselves. The difference, though, between teammate and opponent is that when Ware leaves Russell Okung or Donald Stephenson flailing in the dirt, he’s going to tell them how they got there.

“I talk to the offensive guys,” Ware said. “Tendencies they have, if they’re giving run-pass reads away, what formation that they’re in, and they change those things, and they progress. You don’t see those things when game time comes and so you can’t have those keys on offense.”

This is the type of mentorship that has made Ware one of the best teammates in the NFL since the day he was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys back in 2005. And while the Broncos would love to have him out on the field doing what he does best, they understand that his talents are most important in December and January, not July and August.

Hear more from DeMarcus Ware in the podcast below…

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