Tag: DeMarvion Overshown

Report: Cowboys get encouraging news on recovery timetable for rising star LB

From @ToddBrock24f7: It was feared DeMarvion Overshown would miss all of 2025 with his latest knee injury. Surgery is now done, and his return could come sooner.

The Cowboys have received an encouraging update on the injury front, a rare occurrence in this season that has seen so many of the team’s top playmakers miss multiple games or have their 2024 campaign end prematurely.

DeMarvion Overshown has undergone surgery to repair the right knee triple tear he suffered against the Bengals on Dec. 9, and despite initial fears that the devastating injury could cost him the entire 2025 season, there is now hope for the second-year linebacker to make an earlier return.

Per NFL insider Jordan Schultz, Overshown’s procedure, performed by renowned California-based orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache, was deemed “successful,” and the former Texas Longhorn “could return by mid-to-late next season, a far more optimistic timeline than initially expected after the diagnosis.”

Overshown tore his ACL, PCL, and MCL in the fourth quarter of Week 14’s Monday Night loss to Cincinnati. The 24-year-old had been the Cowboys’ second-leading tackler coming into that game, just his 13th game appearance since being drafted in the third round of 2023’s draft.

The Texas native missed his entire rookie year due to an ACL tear in his other knee.

He finished this season with 90 tackles, five sacks, eight TFLs, five QB hits, four passes defended, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery, and an interception that he returned for a touchdown.

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His Cowboys coaches and teammates were gutted by this latest injury, with Micah Parsons fighting back tears as he spoke to reporters about his “little bro.”

Overshown, though, has kept a positive outlook from the very beginning, posting on social media just hours after the injury, “Wouldn’t want this for anyone else! One of God’s Toughest Soldiers (prayer hands emoji) Keep me in your prayers…”

Patrik Walker of the team website reports that linebacker Marist Liufau, who saw a bump in playing time last week as Overshown’s replacement, has received a post-op text from him stating, “He’s doing well and he’s in good spirits.”

To be clear, Overshown won’t be back in action anytime soon. But it may be a little sooner than once thought.

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Major injury to former 3rd-round pick will shake up Cowboys 2025 draft plans

It will take at least two high end players for the Cowboys to replace DeMarvion Overshown in 2025, says @ReidDHanson.

It’s not often a critical December loss brought on by a botched special teams play in the waning moments of a game is only the second most terrible thing to happen to the Cowboys, but in the wake of DeMarvion Overshown’s season ending knee injury, that’s exactly what it is.

The 5-8 Cowboys losing another game, in any fashion, is old hat in Dallas this year. 2024 has been a season to forget and even a recent two-game winning streak couldn’t vault the Cowboys into contender status. Losing one of the youngest and most exciting players to a significant knee injury is unquestionably the headline following Week 14.

After missing all of the 2023 season to an ACL on his other knee, Overshown made it 13 games before a second, even more significant injury did the same in Year 2. The Cowboys were just starting to understand what Overshown could do as an NFL player. The 6-foot-2, 220-pound heatseeking missile established himself as the Cowboys second best pass-rusher, top run stopper and promising coverage man.

Overshown was a man without a position in all the right ways. Reminiscent of Micah Parsons, Overshown served as the Cowboys not-so-secret weapon whose only limitation is the creativity of the coaching staff designing plays for him. With Dak Prescott and Zack Martin already sidelined for the year, the loss of Overshown serves as salt in an already festering wound in Dallas.

Unfortunately, the bad news doesn’t end there. Tears to Overshown’s ACL, MCL, and PCL are said to threaten his entire 2025 season as well. The timing and severity of the injury isn’t something that a simple offseason can cure, and the Cowboys have to operate like their youngest and brightest star may not be back until 2026.

The impact of this from a roster-building perspective is rather significant. As stated earlier, Overshown is a special player who serves multiple roles. The Cowboys can’t expect to fill those roles with just one player but likely need to target two or more in the draft.

Linebacker, the position Overshown is technically listed at, is the obvious draft need for Dallas. Overshown was Dallas’ top LB this season and with Eric Kendricks likely to leave in the offseason, the Cowboys need to add new LBs in a big way this coming draft cycle. Even with the expected ascension of rookie Marist Liufau, the Cowboys need to find at least two high quality replacements through free agency and the draft.

Overshown the pass rusher also needs to be replaced. He was Dallas’ second-best pass rusher this season and was on track to be No. 2 again in 2025 before the injury. Overshown was a pass rusher who could blitz from anywhere and could be moved constantly to exploit mismatches. It’s not something a traditional defensive end can do and it’s not something a normal LB can do either. It’s a role that’s not easily filled and frankly, may never get filled.

With Overshown gone the Cowboys need to find a player with high end speed and sideline-to-sideline range, they need a moveable pass rusher, and they need a fearless run stopper. Best guess is it will take two draft picks just to partially cover the loss of Overshown this spring. With so many needs already on the docket for the 2025 NFL draft, this is terrible news for a team hoping to bounce back next year.

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‘More severe than an ACL’: Promising young Cowboys LB suffers devastating knee injury

From @ToddBrock24f7: A serious knee injury Monday night left his teammates devastated, but DeMarvion Overshown himself is already eyeing his next comeback.

One of the few bright spots in the Cowboys’ gloomy 2024 season has been snuffed out. And while the darkness may linger for some time, the player at the center of it is already igniting a new flicker of hope.

DeMarvion Overshown, the promising second-year linebacker who was playing in just his 13th game as a pro, went down with a leg injury during the fourth quarter of Monday night’s gut-wrenching 27-20 loss to Cincinnati.

This injury may be even worse than the preseason ACL tear that cost him his entire rookie campaign in 2023.

“It’s of serious nature, I’m told, that’s really all I know,” Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said after the game, per the team website. “It didn’t look good.”

Overshown entered the contest as the team’s second-leading tackler, with more sacks- five- than any Cowboys defender apart from Micah Parsons, with a team-best eight tackles for loss, and having recorded the only interception return for a touchdown of Dallas’s season so far.

But when his right leg was rolled up on by Bengals center Ted Karras, it was cause for immediate concern. Cowboys teammates quickly called for assistance, and Overshown was taken directly to the locker room with help from two team trainers. He was ruled out of the remainder of the contest within minutes.

Clarence Hill Jr. of AllCity DLLS reports that the team believes that Overshown “ruptured several ligaments in his knee” and that the injury is “more severe than an ACL.”

Overshown’s 2023 ACL tear was in his left knee.

Although Overshown will undergo further testing on Tuesday, the gravity of the former Longhorn’s injury was already obvious to the rest of the Cowboys locker room.

Parsons was visibly shaken while speaking with reporters about the teammate he’s taken to calling his “little bro.”

“I cried,” Parsons said. “He don’t deserve that, either. He really don’t. To just understand what he’s going to go through- physically and mentally- it’s so challenging. He’s so talented. The year he was having, I mean, I really just don’t think that’s fair.”

Veteran linebacker Eric Kendricks acknowledged that injuries are a part of the game but admitted that seeing Overshown go down was especially tough.

“I’m just feeling for him right now,” he said. “I know how hard he works, and it means a lot to him. Means a lot to me. It’s not really fair. Football is not really fair. You never know.”

“I know it definitely hit a lot of the guys,” McCarthy said.

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It hit Overshown, too. The Texas native gave an update on social media late Monday night that hinted at the severity of his latest injury.

“Wouldn’t want this for anyone else!” he posted. “One of God’s Toughest Soldiers (prayer hands emoji) Keep me in your prayers…”

By Tuesday morning, though, he was already on the comeback trail, at least mentally. An X influencer account called Attack! on Cowboys posted, “hoping DeMarvion Overshown doesn’t become one of the greatest ‘what if’ stories of all time.”

Overshown himself offered a short and sweet response.

“Guarantee I won’t.”

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Shifting the Overshown window: a major takeaway in Cowboys 27-20 win

DeMarvion Overshown has normalized the spectacular and that’s great for the Cowboys now and moving forward. | From @ReidDHanson

The Overton Window is known as the shifting spectrum of government policies that are deemed acceptable by the masses. What seemed crazy one year ago might now seem perfectly fine today. It’s achieved by changing circumstances and/or desensitization to the public.

DeMarvion Overshown has produced his own shifting window. When the Texas product was first drafted by the Cowboys in 2023, he was player without a clear and obvious position. At 6-foot-2, 220-pounds, he played a safety-linebacker hybrid role in college and projected to play something similar in the NFL.

After missing his rookie season to a season-ending injury, Overshown has been used largely as a linebacker in 2024. Yet day by day, he’s seen more and more opportunities to showcase the special talents other linebackers don’t possess. In the Cowboys’ 27-20 win over New York on Thanksgiving, Overshown has successfully normalized an abnormal role on the Dallas defense.

As the best weapon not named “Micah Parsons,” Overshown is an elite weapon blitzing up the middle, playing in the box, dropping into coverage, and playing off the edge. He’s become the player a defensive coordinator schemes for. He’s become a player offensive coordinators scheme against.

12 weeks ago, using Overshown as a regular pass rusher seemed like an absurd thought. A player built for the secondary didn’t have much business playing on the line of scrimmage. But Mike Zimmer’s infamous double A-gap blitz provided him a perfect opportunity to showcase his skills. He did that and more this season, logging 17 pressures and five sacks prior to Week 13. He trails only Parsons in the sack department this season and added another pressure, interception and touchdown to the ledger on Thursday.

It’s no longer a crazy proposition to use Overshown as a regular pass rusher, be it from the edge or up the middle. The Overshown window has shifted where the absurd have quietly become the expected.

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DeMarvion Overshown of Cowboys will incredible pick-six of Giants’ Drew Lock

Great defensive play by Dallas rookie LB DeMarvion Overshown

DeMarvion Overshown won’t forget his first interception, which turned into a pick-six.

Overshow was blitzing on the Thanksgiving Day play for the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants.

He was picked up and blocked by Devin Singletary but Overshown, a rookie out of Texas, had the presence of mind to realize a screen pass had been called.

He blocked Drew Lock’s pass into the air, caught the carom and returned it 23 yards for the score.

Brandon Aubrey’s PAT made it 13-6.

Report: Cowboys LB gets encouraging update on Sunday’s knee injury

From @ToddBrock24f7: DeMarvion Overshown played like he was shot of a cannon Sunday. Early word on a knee injury he suffered is that he dodged a bullet.

Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown looked like he was playing at a different speed than the other 21 men on the field Sunday at AT&T Stadium. The second-year prospect out of Texas, playing in just his ninth game as a pro after losing his entire rookie season to a knee injury, finished the Cowboys’ 34-6 loss as the team’s leading tackler, adding two sacks, two QB hits, and two tackles for loss in what was one of the few bright spots on the day for the silver and blue.

It was all the more disheartening, then, to see the 24-year-old down on the turf in the third quarter of the Week 10 contest, requiring attention after a routine play in which he appeared to not even take a hit.

Overshown was able to return to the game after getting checked out by medical personnel and told the media afterward, “I’m great [physically]. I’ll be ready to go next week.”

Monday brought more good news for the former third-round draft pick.

NFL insider Ian Rapoport cites a source who explains that Overshown is dealing with a case of bursitis in his right knee. (He tore the ACL in his left knee last August.) Per Rapoport, X-rays on the knee were negative, and he appears to have avoided a significant injury.

Knee bursitis is a condition in which one or more small fluid-filled sacs near the joint become inflamed. While painful and possibly limiting in terms of movement, “treatment and rehab” from the Cowboys staff is the likely course of action.

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It is not known if the injury will affect Overshown’s practice schedule for the week or his availability for next Monday night’s game versus the Houston Texans.

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Promising Cowboys LB leaves Eagles game from non-contact injury

The young Cowboys LB was having a great game before having to leave for an undisclosed injury. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Update: Overshown was able to return to the game.

One of the few bright spots from the 2024 season has been the play of first-year linebacker DeMarvion Overshown. The University of Texas product missed his entire rookie season due to a summer ACL injury, but has largely looked unaffacted in his return.

During Sunday’s game against the Eagles, the first since the return of edge rush extraordinaire Micah Parsons, Overshown has been used to pressure the quarterback. The results have been electric, with the heat-seeking missile securing two of the Cowboys’ five first-half sacks. But in the second half, the mood has soured.

During the Eagles’ third drive of the third quarter, Overshown fell to the ground with a non-contact injury.

Through less than three quarters, Overshown has 11 tackles along with his two sacks, and he’s been the most impactful player on the defense that has tried as hard as possible to keep their team competitive while the offense sputters embarrassingly almost every time they’ve been on the field.

Dallas has lost a fumble in the red zone and also failed to convert two other opportunities, settling for field goals. With the score now 28-6, hearing the extent of Overshown’s injury may be the only thing yet to be decided in the contest.

Falcons RB Bijan Robinson earns sideline praise in game he’s not even playing in

The latest Cowboys’ Sounds from the Sideline video offers a glimpse into the Longhorn Legion as DeMarvion Overshown talks the difficulty in corralling his former teammate. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Anyone familiar with the state of Texas has a deep understanding of what football means to folks in that part of the world. Like Western Pennsylvania and several hotspots in California, the amount of talent from that part of the country is insane. And despite not winning a college football championship in some time, the brotherhood is extended to those who attend the University of Texas.

That was on display at an unexpected time in Week 4, when former UT and current Dallas Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown was getting accolades from his teammates for yet another impressive defensive play. Overshown chased down speedy Giants WR Wan’Dale Robinson on the left sideline to prevent a touchdown. When asked about it back on the sideline, he credited having to chase down former teammate and current Atlanta Falcons RB Bijan Robinson in practice.

It was all captured in the latest Dallas Cowboys Sounds from the Sideline video at the 3:52 mark.

“I used to practice against Bijan every [expletive day. At Texas? So I know… that’s where I learned. Bro when you close, don’t give ’em no time to think about a move.”

Overshown and Robinson were in the same draft class of 2023, but an ACL injury in training camp stole the Cowboys LB’s rookie season. Now that he’s back, he’s displaying an insane amount of closing speed and wrap-up tackling ability Dallas hasn’t had at the position in some time.

He’ll get a chance to show how capable he is in bringing down his former teammate when the Cowboys visit the Falcons in Week 9 on November 3.

 

More 3-4 looks may cover Cowboys’ temporary personnel problem

The Cowboys can’t replace Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence but maybe they don’t have to

The Cowboys essentially saved their season with their Week 4 win over the Giants, but the cost of victory was significant, losing both Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence in the process. Parsons, out 2-4 weeks with a high ankle sprain, and Lawrence, out 4-8 weeks with a Lisfranc injury, are by most accounts irreplaceable.

Parsons and Lawrence aren’t just Dallas’ top pressure players and key run defenders, but they are leaders on the field and the heart and soul of the defense. The falloff behind them appears to be immense with the rookie Marshawn Kneeland and longtime reserve Chauncey Golston slated to replace them in the starting lineup. In his fourth season, Golston has less than five career sacks to his name. Kneeland, sackless in the NFL, never logged more than 4.5 sacks in a single season in college. Based on their individual track records, it’s unlikely either player can replace half the production of the men they’re replacing.

It might be best if defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer flips the script.

Instead of inadequately filling the need at defensive end with role players, Zimmer may be better served to mix up front seven entirely. Given the strengths and weaknesses of the roster, the Cowboys could find it easier to employ a more traditional odd man front that leans on the defensive tackles rather than the defensive ends.

Contrary to popular belief many 3-4 and 4-3 fronts are extremely similar. Just because these are changes in personnel groupings doesn’t mean they change the system being played. The Cowboys already bounce between odd and even fronts frequently, using under, over and BEAR looks, including a 3-3-5. It wouldn’t be a fundamental change for Zimmer’s defense per say, just an effort to avoid plugging a round hole with a square peg.

Under this proposal the pressure players would come largely from the linebacker ranks. Dallas’ most explosive player, DeMarvion Overshown, could man an outside LB spot and serve as the chief pass rusher. The other outside LB spot could be filled by someone like Carl Lawson who has played that very role in both the NFL and back at Auburn.

Mazi Smith and Linval Joseph would rotate as the nose tackle and Osa Odighizuwa looks perfectly capable of being a playmaking defensive end. The other DE spot could be handled by a number of players including Kneeland and Golston. As 3-4 DEs they wouldn’t need to be the explosive players Parsons and Lawrence were because the playmaking roles would be on the edge LBs.

For the first time in a while the strength of the roster appears to be the LB position, so it only makes sense for the Cowboys to lean on it. And given Dallas’ issues defending the run this season, mixing things up could be just what this defense needs.

Moving to more three-man fronts sounds like a bigger change than it really is. It allows the Cowboys to lean on the strength of their roster and with any luck survive the losses of the team’s best playmakers.

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Official who called Giants for errant facemask has interesting Cowboys history

The referee who called an errant facemask on New York Giants TE Daniel Bellinger has a questionable history officiating Dallas Cowboys games.

The media is beating up the New York Giants for losing another winnable game against a division opponent after their 20-15 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night.

Yes, they had to settle for five field goals in the game and only got into the red zone twice, but if you look deeper, you’ll find that the officials in that game did not do them any favors.

Dial it back to the first quarter. The Giants took possession on their own 15 and drove down to the Dallas 37 in four plays. On the fifth play, a second-and-7, quarterback Daniel Jones ran for a four-yard gain to the 33.

The officials, whose crew is led by Clay Martin, called a facemask penalty on Giants tight end Daniel Bellinger negating the play. Replays revealed that Bellinger did not commit any penalty at all. In fact, the facemask should have been called on Dallas linebacker Demarion Overshown.

The officials got the call wrong and did not pick up the flag after a short conference. Instead of the Giants having a third-and-3 on the Dallas 33, they were pushed back 15 yards to the Dallas 48.

The Giants ended up settling for a field goal on that drive. Who’s to say they wouldn’t have anyway, but we’ll never know. In a game that was settled by less than one score, little things matter. They add up.

That’s not really the only point here, however. NFL analyst Warren Sharp posted this set of facts on his X media account:

We’re not big on conspiracy theories but we wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we didn’t share these facts.

In fact, we’ll debunk any conspiracy right now by pointing out that Dallas was called for 11 penalties for 89 yards in the game to the Giants’ four for 35 yards.

But this one on Bellinger hurt. They should have picked up the flag.

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