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todd archer
Frisco, Texas — demarvian overshon Knew it was bad.
“Going down, I felt like all the ligaments were tearing one by one,” he said dallas cowboys The linebacker said, recalling what happened with 12:49 left in the fourth quarter of the December 9, 2024, game against cincinnati bengals,
Confirmation would come after an MRI the next morning, but Overshawn knew that. He didn’t have to watch his right knee get injured again by a Bengals offensive lineman on a 2-yard run down the left sideline.
The ACL and MCL were torn. The posterior cruciate ligament was torn from the bone. Only the lateral collateral ligament was still attached.
Overshon was unable to move his leg. He was in pain, but his frustration was greater than his punching on the field. As members of the Cowboys medical staff approached Overshawn, they had one request: no medical carts.
“If this is the last time I’m on the field, I want to be able to go out,” Overshon said. “I don’t want a kart because this is for the 2024 season for me.”
By that moment, the 2023 third-round draft pick was long gone.
Overshon was the Cowboys’ second leading tackler and became the third Cowboy since 1982 to record at least five sacks, one interception (which he returned for a touchdown), one fumble recovery and one forced fumble in the same season. demarcus ware (2006) and greg ellis (1999).
Walking slowly toward the locker room, his thoughts immediately turned to 2025.
With his left arm wrapped around director of team safety Cable Johnson and his right arm over associate athletic trainer/director of rehabilitation Britt Brown, a conversation set in motion a nearly year-long recovery plan for his painful injury.
Monday night at Allegiant Stadium against las vegas raiders ,8:15 PM ET, ABC/ESPN), Overshawn will return to the field 343 days after suffering a devastating injury.
“What do I have to do to come back?” Overshond asked Brown. “How long have we been looking?”
“It’s going to be tough. Even tougher than the first one,” Brown said, pointing to the injury he suffered in his left knee, an ACL overstretch that cost him his rookie season in 2023. “But if there’s anyone who can beat the odds, it’s you.”
ten days later Suffering from an injury, Dr. Neil Elattrache, who repaired Overshawn’s left knee in 2023, performed surgery on his right knee.
Overshon said the surgery took seven hours.
When he was a freshman in high school, he suffered a tibial plateau fracture in his left knee. To fix this, two screws were inserted in the knee. The ACL repair in Overshawn’s right knee required Dr. L’Attrache to use the patella tendon, removing the screws for a proper graft.
Overshawn insisted, “It took them an hour and a half to get both screws out. An hour and a half.” “And while doing so he broke the hammer.
“It was really crazy. And then I tell people all the time after the surgery, the worst part wasn’t even my knee. It was the fact that my butt was hurting so bad because I was laying on that table for seven hours.”
Overshon laughs at the memory now, but it was the beginning of a journey he tackled with a smile almost every day.
“Nothing fazes him,” Brown said.
Before Overshaw left the locker room the night of the injury, two teammates were inconsolable when talking to him, but he told them, “I’m OK. You know why? Because I know I can handle it.”
That resolve came from his mother, Felicia Williams, who worked as a custodian and in home health care to support DeMarvion and his three siblings growing up in Earp, Texas, a small East Texas town about 120 miles from Dallas.
“My siblings, we’re a year apart, so you think about four growing teenagers at a time and then four almost in diapers at a time,” Overshon said. “My mom went through all this and she cried. She cried. But they were tears of strength because she never gave up. She never told us it wasn’t OK. I thought I had the best childhood growing up. I didn’t realize I was underclass until I got to where I am now. The way we lived, they made sure we were OK. So I’m great.
“This injury? Whatever happens to me from here on out can never compare to what my mother had to endure in raising us.”
nfl running backs Nick Chubb And Willis McGahee Returned to play after suffering three torn knee ligaments. Former Cowboys tight end mike lucky Played two seasons in 2000 after tearing the ACL, PCL and MCL in his knee.
Overshon spent hours with physical therapist and assistant athletic trainer Hanson Yang, “strengthening the small muscles” of his knees, hips and legs. Strength and conditioning coordinator Harold Nash and his staff helped keep the rest of Overshawn’s body strong and, when the knee was healthy enough, put him through football drills.
However, the majority of Overshon’s time was spent with Brown, who has been with the Cowboys for 31 years.
Brown could not determine the amount of hours involved. Neither could be overshadowed. But there was never a day when one was there and the other was not.
“It’s tough love,” Overshon said. “I don’t think anyone would want it more than the guys who work in that training room. The guys you see every day, their mission is to make sure you’re performing your best. Forget what they were doing, forget what they get paid. Their mission is to make sure you perform your best, in whatever is in your best interest.
“Me and Britt, we found that understanding and our hearts have been connected ever since.”
A bond that was first formed during his left ACL rehab in 2023 has grown stronger over the past 11 months.
“He wanted to do everything the right way,” Brown said. “I mean, he was always on time. Those guys are easy for me. I struggle with guys who don’t want to work, don’t see a reason to work, don’t want to be here when needed, don’t show up at all or show up late. Those are the guys I have a problem with, and that guy was never, ever on time and never willing to work or do whatever needed to be done.
“There wasn’t a single time, I can tell you that. None.”
about a week Before training camp in July, Brown and Overshawn visited ElAttrache for a checkup. The overshower was cleared. The knee was healthy. But there’s a difference between a knee being healthy and being ready to play football.
Overshawn knew he needed time. He was struggling with some calf pain. A cyst burst in his knee during the training camp. But nothing bothered him.
He said, “I believed for the whole world that I was cured. Now I just had to get over the pain.” “It was to be a football player again, to be an NFL football player again. And that’s what it was. I attacked it every day like it’s my job to be as healthy as I can today, now it’s my job to get to the next step. That’s how I challenged myself. I wanted to be the best ACL, MCL, PCL guy I could be.”
Before Overshawn’s 21-day practice window opened on October 22, he visited ElAttrache once again in California. All force-plate testing numbers measuring rebound energy and velocity in his right knee were better than before his injury.
“Their protoplasm is not like yours and mine,” Brown said.
Since he started practicing, Overshawn has felt relief from the pain caused by football, not through rehabilitation. Every day, the knee felt better. But then on October 30, he dislocated his thumb, which reporters noticed when entering the facility at the beginning of practice.
Will it take several hours for his knee and thumb to heal?
“At first I didn’t want to leave the field,” Overshawn said. “I said, ‘Okay, take pictures,’ and, ‘Oh, this guy can’t stay on the field. Oh, this guy is glass.’ But we were hoping he could put it back. This is a finger. This is football. People misplace or move their fingers all the time.”
Overshawn returned to practice within minutes, much to the relief of Brown as well as his teammates.
On his way back, Overshawn marked the occasions on a calendar.
In February, he made sure he wasn’t on crutches to attend a wedding bachelorette party, at which he was best man. In March, he proposed to his girlfriend, Alexis Babineaux, only when he knew his right knee could take it. He wanted to make sure he could dance at some of the spring weddings he attended.
In June, he and Babino welcomed their second child, Texas Lee.
He said, “If they ask, I will ride a bike in two weeks.” “Okay, I can do it in a week.”
Months, weeks and days are now behind him. Now all that’s left are hours. The return is finally here, less than a calendar year later – certainly sooner than many thought – since his injury.
Thinking about Monday’s kickoff, emotions begin to flood Overshon and Brown.
When Brown was asked what he would think when he saw Overshawn on the field, he said, “Satisfaction.” “For all of us. I mean for the entire training staff. Strong staff. Because all these guys, I mean everybody touches these guys. We helped them. It’s just a matter of helping them.
“For me, I just want to help them play, help them make money for their family, be able to go back and do what they’ve wanted to do since they were 8 years old, especially for a guy like D-Mo.”
Brown had tears in his eyes.
“Yes, it will be difficult,” he said. “I’ll try to keep it together. Trying to keep it together now.”
His conversation with Brown while walking from the field to the locker room at AT&T Stadium is etched in Overshawn’s memory, now he sees another picture in his mind.
“I’m probably going to cry,” Overshawn said. “I would hug him tight. Because, man, he knows every day. Some days, we talked, and it was like, ‘We’re going to be okay, man. You’re going to be okay.’ And what do I do? I smiled and we got our work done. And so if anybody knows, they know that I came here to work every day.
“I just wanted what was best for the team. I wanted to be me again. And he never let me down. I told him that. I wrote him in a long message. I’m like, ‘I appreciate you for not letting me give up. I appreciate you for not letting me give up on myself.'”
