FRISCO, Texas – Here is all you need to know about DeMarvion Overshown, from tiny Arp, Texas, in Smith County, 17.9 miles southeast of Tyler. Population of no more than 900 people, and probably during his five years at the University of Texas, he just might have sat in a lecture hall numbering half his little town's population.
And in all these years covering the TV, never, ever seen the most serious of knee injuries he sustained in the Cowboys' Monday night, 27-20, loss to the Cincinnati Bengals have such a profound effect on so many people.
The loss hurt. Still felt the sting in the locker room Wednesday.
But the loss of the guy who has become known as De-Mo to so many in the organization might have hurt more. Micah Parsons teared up talking about his injury. Eric Kendricks talked with measured words. A lot of heads shook, guys trying to gather themselves before finding words to speak.
They all understood what DeMarvion had gone through his rookie season, suffering the torn ACL of his right knee. Out for the season. Fought back to play in all 13 games this season. Then Monday night, 12:49 left in the game, his right knee goes out. Torn ACL, MCL, PCL. Done for the season. Surgery as soon as possible. Next season in question, too.
As Cowboys associate trainer and director of rehabilitation, and the guy who was with De-Mo every step of the way rehabilitating from last year's torn ACL, Britt Brown termed this injury as a "major, major injury."
But get this, and this is the love sometimes only found in smalltown USA like Arp, where they take care of their own, and knowing the pain DeMarvion must be going through mentally after last year's ordeal:
The Arp Independent School District has proclaimed Friday as DeMarvion Overshown Day, all district students and staff are being asked to please wear TV blue and white colors or a DeMarvion jersey, T-shirt or any sort of apparel if they have one.
The text the Arp ISD posted stated, "Please join Arp ISD in showing support for our Arp Tiger (Tiger pic) alum as he prepares to have season ending knee surgery sometime this week."
Happens when you grow a tad older, but just reading a copy of that post sort of shook me up, got a little emotional.
When told the planned day at the schools to Brown, he could only smile. He knows how they must feel about DeMarvion. Why, you get to know someone pretty well when you are right there every step of the way rehabbing a guy for some 11 months. And know this about Britt: He's not the kind to just say stuff to say stuff. When he says something, at least me, I listen.
"He never flinched, never flinched," Brown says. "Anything I told him to do, anything we told him to do as a staff, he never asked why, or asked, should I be doing this? It was like, OK. He worked his ass off. I can't say enough about how he worked. He approached everything like, 'Let's get this going.' He'll approach this the same way. He's just … rare.
"There is only one other person I can think of like that, and that's our quarterback."
He means Dak Prescott.
This is rare, too, as Britt and Cowboys director of security Cable Johnson locked arms over DeMarvion's shoulders walking him off the AT&T Stadium field and directly to the locker room.
"This, and I know him, this is a setback in his mind, and it's nothing more than a setback. I know that sounds crazy because it's a major, major injury, but initially he's already talking to me as I'm walking him off the field with Cable," Brown says. "He's already wanting to know, 'You know, can I make it back next year? You're going to have to push me.' I'm like, 'Well, we got a lot of things to think about, worry about right now. Let's just get in the locker room and figure out what we got going on here.' His knee was already unstable from the injury because it's a severe injury.
"So he'll attack the whole thing, there is no doubt he'll be back. When that's going to be, we'll be very smart with this because there is lot of long term-implications if we don't take care of this right."
If there is any good news with an injury this severe, his lateral ligaments are stable, and he did not suffer any damage to the meniscus in his right knee. Surgery will be performed as soon as possible.
- High Praise: So Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who was with the Cowboys the first time around from 1994-2006, the defensive coordinator those last seven seasons, was asked if Overshown compares to any player he might previously have had, which is a wide span since Zimm is now coaching in his 29th NFL season. "Um," Zimm begins, then with a pregnant pause before continuing after searching his rolodex of players, "they're different positions, but kind of a like a guy like Darren Woodson. Just the impact of the different things they can do. The ability he has and the physicality. I would probably say he's the closest of any I can think of off the top of my head." Not bad being "closest" to Woody, who he coached for nine seasons. A Cowboys Ring of Honor member, it's high time for this Pro Football Hall of Fame modern-day semifinalist to advance to the finals, the final 15 to be announced on Dec. 28.
- Turpin Time: So mentioned after the Monday night game, saw during the two-minute timeout with the Bengals prepared to punt, KaVontae Turpin, the best return man in the NFL, was having conversations with the Bengals guys on their sideline. "They were telling me, 'Don't return it,'" Turpin said. "And I told them, 'You better kick it out of bounds, and they were saying, 'Leave the ball alone, don't catch it.' And I told them, 'Then you better kick it out of bounds,' because I knew we had a return on, trying to triple-team the gunner, and we were going to have a chance to return it. Yeah, one of their guys, (Cam Taylor-Britt) he's one of my guys, said leave it alone, don't touch it." Too bad Turpin never got to touch it.
- Too Soon: And it sure might be looking forward already to the 3-10 Carolina Panthers, come Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., the next game so soon after the Cowboys tough, last-two-minutes loss to the Bengals, dropping their record to 5-8 and their 2024 season playoff hopes to a flickering of hope. As it stands, the Cowboys are three games behind the 8-5 Commanders for the seventh seed in the NFC with four games to play, with the Rams next at 7-6 and even three teams sitting there at 6-7: Atlanta, Arizona and San Francisco. The Cowboys essentially would now have to win out, at Carolina, then home against Tampa Bay, at Philadelphia and home against Washington, plus need a whole lot of losing to take place with those teams ahead of them to have a chance.
- Odd Odds: The then 5-7 Cowboys playing at home and riding a two-game winning streak were 5½-point underdogs to the 4-8 Bengals on a three-game losing streak. Now they are on the road against the 3-10 Panthers, losers of three straight, losing by three, three and six points. Yet Carolina is favored by 2½ points, which if holds would end a streak of the Panthers being underdogs the past 33 straight games. Carolina was last favored to win on Dec. 18, 2022, 3-point favorite to beat the Steelers at home, and ended up losing 24-16.
- Sipping Shots: Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin is scheduled to have surgery Thursday to repair his torn ankle ligaments and deal with bone spurs … Maybe the Cowboys can get a two for the price of one since Overshown could have his surgery as soon as Thursday but as soon as possible … The Cowboys' eight losses already are the most since going 6-10 in 2020, and matches their loss total of 2019 when Jason Garrett went 8-8 in his last year as head coach … If the Cowboys don't win out, ensuring a losing season, this will be just their third losing season since gong 6-10 in 2010, though after a 1-7 start finishing that season 5-3 under soon-to-be head coach Jason Garrett.
And for this week's last word, we're going short and sweet with Cowboys special teams coach John Fassel, who might have had the line of the year trying to explain the difficulty of playing special teams with the high level of variables that can occur in the kicking game and the return game.
Fassel went to detailed lengths to explain what the Cowboys were trying to do on the Bengals' final punt of the game at the two-minute warning. That's when veteran Nick Vigil partially blocked the punt, only to have the ball carry forward like 10 yards past the line of scrimmage (29) and two-bounce to the unsuspecting Amani Oruwariye, who had no idea the ball had been blocked since he was part of the two-man vice block on Cincinnati's left-side gunner.
Then Cowboys had a return on, but Vigil's job was to hold up on the line of scrimmage to make sure there is no fake on. When the Bengal in front of him released without blocking, the veteran linebacker had the wherewithal to then take an open path to the punter. So when the ball is blocked, Oruwariye, running with his back to the line of scrimmage with the gunner had no idea what had taken place, and his natural reaction with the ball bouncing right at him, doing what most of us would have done, was to raise his hands instinctively to catch the ball.
Because the ball was blocked forward, a muff, Bengals recovery. Not easy to play special teams or coach every nuance of the game that might come up.
Bottom line, Fassel said, "Don't let your babies grow up to be special-teams players."
Good one, John.
