FRISCO — At the beginning of another arduous journey, with a freshly reconstructed knee serving as a reminder of the road ahead, Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown felt determined. Yes, to recover from another significant injury, just as he did before he played his first NFL game. But also to go against the recommendations of those around him: doctors’ orders, conventional wisdom, and even his fiancée’s wishes.
As his mother, Felicia Williams, affectionately said: DeMarvion “was being a knucklehead. But, again, determined.”
Just as determined as he was to get back on the field.
Overshown tore three ligaments in his knee on Dec. 9. One person with the Cowboys described it as a potential career-ending injury. Instead, it proved to be just another setback in his story.
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Initially, projections for Overshown to return to the field on Thanksgiving against the Kansas City Chiefs were looked at as optimistic. Overshown beat that mark by two games.
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Overshown’s mother said he’s the type of person who will do whatever it takes to make something happen once he puts his mind to it, as he did days after his surgery.
Overshown had previously committed to being in Tyler, Texas — about 20 miles from his hometown of Arp — days before Christmas for a bike giveaway, and nothing was going to stop him. Not even surgery and the recommended recovery.
His fiancée, Alexis Babino, had one request when Overshown left for Tyler: be sure to sit and rest. If he had to do this, if he had to be there, then he could still be cautious on his leg. She remembers Overshown saying he would oblige her request.
“But that did not happen,” Babino said.
One video of Overshown standing next to a kid, crying in amazement at meeting Overshown, went viral. More photos circulated. Babino saw her fiancé standing in all of them.
“He fought through it. I know he was in pain,” Babino said, “but he fought through that pain. That tells you a lot about the type of person he is. He’s compassionate, he’s positive, he’s resilient, he’s faced so many adversities … and that just says a lot about his determination.”
The fact that he’s playing again, earlier than outsiders expected, shows it, too.
So far, Overshown’s brief NFL career has looked like the subject of a Greek tragedy. His highs have been spectacular, if fleeting; his valleys have been devastating — the nadir, seemingly, being a second season-ending knee injury in only his second season.
When he went down with a clear injury, Babino — sitting at home with their son, DeMarvion Jr., and pregnant with their other, Texas Lee — felt her heart drop as the broadcast went to commercial. Williams stopped and started to pray inside AT&T Stadium. Former teammate Micah Parsons, knowing the road Overshown was about to walk again, started to cry, just as he did later in the locker room in front of reporters.
What Overshown had to go through, Parsons said, wasn’t fair.
And yet, Overshown didn’t blink. Instead, when teammates saw him the next day, he was — to the shock of those who don’t know him — smiling.
“I think he’s living his dream right now,” said veteran teammate C.J. Goodwin, “and you can’t take his joy.”
Overshown has been back on the field for the last two games. He did it with a relentless positivity and a commitment to rehabilitation that’s considered rare by people with the Cowboys.
“No matter what obstacles come before him, they’ve got a battle on their hands,” his mother said, “because he’s definitely going to war with it.”
Dallas Cowboys linebacker Demarvion Overshown (0) shakes hands with free safety Malik Hooker (28) as the team warms up before an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Arlington.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
‘I have to do this again?’
In Overshown’s mind, that’s the only path forward. That’s how he approached the torn ACL he suffered right before the start of his rookie season, and that’s how he planned to approach his latest knee injury, too.
“After it happened, of course, you wonder, ‘Man, it’s a knee, I have to do this again?’” Overshown recalled. “But the event at that point has already happened, so now it’s about what’s next. And that’s how you have to attack it. That’s everything with life.”
And that’s how Overshown, Dale Irwin said, has always approached everything. Irwin, the former head coach at Arp, has known Overshown for years. He saw him grow up from a shy, scrawny kid — Overshown had a shocking five-inch growth spurt in a span of a few months — to a “human torpedo” who instilled fear in other East Texas high school football players because of how hard he hit them.
“He had a couple of games where he decapitated kids on the football field,” Irwin recalled, “before we had targeting.”
“I thought he killed a kid at Hughes Springs one night,” said former Arp defensive coordinator Chris Stewart, who now coaches at Commerce High School.
It was magic, Stewart said, to watch Overshown play. That magic was sparked out of a request.
After his sophomore season at Arp, Irwin and Stewart asked Overshown if he could move from edge rusher to safety. Overshown didn’t hesitate. He told Irwin he would commit to whatever was necessary for the team’s success.
“We could’ve brought him in and said DeMarvion, you’re going to clean the silver pipes and make sure all the toilets are working, and he would’ve said, ‘Yes, sir!’” Irwin said. “There would be no question about it.”
He would do it with a smile, too — just as he possessed even in the moments after his second NFL season-ending knee injury.
Overshown’s relentless smile, his mother says humbly, came from her. Her smile came from her mother, Overshown’s grandmother Florene Williams.
“You have to really be on her bad side, to not see [Florene’s] smile,” Felicia said, “but she’s a Christian, so she keeps a smile on her face.”
Both were powerful influences on Overshown. Both showed positivity, no matter the circumstances. Overshown saw his mother work multiple jobs to help support him and his three siblings. DiMitri Bowie, Overshown’s older cousin, would see it firsthand, too.
“It’s hard to complain about anything when you watched them go through what they went through,” Bowie said.
So Overshown never complained, either.
“All right. This is the plan and I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” Overshown recalled thinking. “This is what God has in store for me, so let’s go.”
Dallas Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown works in the endzone with a trainer during practice at The Star, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025, in Frisco.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
‘He never blinked’
Britt Brown, the Cowboys’ director of rehabilitation, wants to emphasize this point: What Overshown’s accomplished over the last year isn’t normal. To go through one torn ACL rehabilitation, to playing as well as he did during last season, to tearing the ACL, MCL, and PCL in his other knee, isn’t easy.
“To sustain that and come back stronger — which he is; he’s more explosive now than he was prior to both of them. His explosive numbers are better than when we drafted him — he needs full credit that this is a phenomenal return,” Brown said.
It’s enough to blow him away, even as he works his 34th season in the NFL.
“I’m not shocked by it, but with that injury, that’s a career-ender. It really is,” Brown said. “He never blinked.”
There were plenty of opportunities to blink.
Dallas Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (13) is helped off the field after being injured during the second half of an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals at AT&T Stadium on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024, in Arlington.
Smiley N. Pool / Staff Photographer
Recovering from a traumatic, season-ending injury is a grueling process. Healthy players will depart from the team facility in June for a break before training camp. Injured players, like Overshown, are instead expected to stay and continue their rehabilitation. There are “down weeks” when the workload isn’t as rigorous, but even then, there are designed cardio and weight-lifting days.
Despite the difficulty of the process, Brown said Overshown showed up every day, asked what he had to do, and got it done. Brown has wondered something over the three seasons and two knee recovery stretches he’s shared with Overshown: When will the positivity run out? He said he keeps waiting to see if Overshown will lapse in that positivity and have a bad day — and he’s still waiting.
“If he felt like that, he never showed that to me,” Brown said. “He may have very well felt like that, and I’m sure he did, but he wasn’t going to let that show when he walked in the door. He left that at the door.”
And when he returned home, he left his rehabilitation at the door, too. That’s because he had another obligation. When Overshown’s 3-year-old son, DeMarvion Jr., hears his dad’s lifted purple truck approaching, he gets excited and races to the door to see him.
Being a father is something Felicia said her son has always looked forward to. Babino said her fiancé has attacked that with the same enthusiasm and energy he does on the football field. DJ recently picked up soccer, so Overshown bought his son a soccer goal and practiced with him often. The two will watch the show “Marvin” before bed almost every night.
The way Overshown has committed to football and family has been expected, but still inspiring to those around him. It’s been so special that they’ve made sure to check in with him from time to time. DiMitri would tell his younger cousin that he doesn’t have to be Superman all the time. Babino would ask him often if he’s sure he’s doing OK. When he came home after tearing three ligaments, she didn’t see someone demoralized.
“At all,” Babino said.
Babino saw someone determined. So did everyone who witnessed his rehabilitation over the last year.
“I’m just blown away by his mental toughness, his grit — we call it competitive stamina — because he’s never wavered,” Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said. “No one, no one, has attacked rehab as hard as he has, and I think that’s why you’re seeing him back probably earlier than most people thought and playing at a high level.”
Overshown has six tackles and a tackle for loss in limited action in his first two games. He’s been one of a handful of new additions that have helped the Cowboys go from one of the worst defenses in the league, to one of the most resurgent ones.
Now that Overshown has made it back, those around him hope he can sustain it.
“Oh, man, I want it more than anything in the world for him,” Brown said. “I want him to go out there and play like he’s a Pro Bowler the rest of the year, make plays, and then I want him to get his second contract. I want everything for him. I want the money for his family, I want him to have success. He deserves every bit of it. And it’s going to happen for him. I truly believe that, because he won’t be denied.”
Dallas Cowboys linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (0) waits for the snap during the second half of an NFL game against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Las Vegas. The Cowboys defeated the Raiders 33-16.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
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