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FRISCO, Texas — I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So, all jokes aside, while I'll always defer to the medical and athletic training staff as it relates to the status and prognosis of Dallas Cowboys' players, I've also seen, experienced and/or covered enough injuries in sports that I can confidently state the following:
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
I realize that my weekly editions of Science Lab are typically more of a deep dive into trends and whatnot, but allow me this week to address the wooly mammoth in the room, because with the season-ending injury to Overshown's right knee has come a flood of doubters who continually float the preposterous idea that the talented young linebacker has played his last snap in Dallas; and maybe in his NFL career.
These are likely the same people who use WebMD when they have a runny nose and then tell their entire family they're dying of bubonic plague with a sprinkle of syphilis, though the latter might explain the holes in their logic (read: brain).
The facts of the matter are indeed catastrophic, so let's not sugarcoat it. He will soon be moved to injured reserve after he undergoes surgery to repair three torn ligaments in his knee — his ACL, MCL and PCL — and his road to recovery will be daunting, arduous and all other synonymous adjectives that qualify to describe the Hell he's about to push through to reach the greatness awaiting on the other side of it.
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
He isn't simply down for the remainder of 2024, but due to the injury being suffered in mid-December, his entire 2025 season is indeed in jeopardy as well, and a more realistic prognosis is that he should be expected back for 2026, be it that calendar year (wink, wink?) or the start of that regular season; but, yes, he will be back.
There is reportedly no nerve damage in his knee, and that's massively good news because it means the injury isn't akin to that of what Jaylon Smith suffered in his final game at Notre Dame ahead of that year's draft, when it was the Cowboys' staff helping him to achieve the impossible in helping the nerve to regenerate while overcoming dropfoot — a condition that occurs when the main nerve in the leg is severed and there's loss of control of the corresponding foot — to return to the football field when many told him he'd never play again.
That is not what is happening with the current Cowboys' linebacker.
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
In looking for rightful comparisons to the injury, my mind immediately went to three examples, one being a player on the active roster in Dallas as we speak, each having suffered something similar: Navarro Bowman, Nick Chubb and Terence Steele.
Bowman went to the ground in the NFC Championship game of the 2013 season (technically making it January 2014 on the calendar) with a torn ACL and MCL. At the time, it was believed he might not play again and, if he did, there was allegedly little to no chance he'd return to the Pro Bowl and All-Pro level he was operating at prior to the injury. He'd go on to miss the entire 2014 season, but return to action for 2015, roughly 20 months later, fly out of the gate in the season opener against the Minnesota Vikings and go on to earn another Pro Bowl nod and his fourth First-Team All-Pro nod that season.
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
Chubb was arguably the best running back in the nation when he suited up for the Georgia Bulldogs in 2015 — on the fast track to possibly being a top-10 draft pick whenever he'd choose to declare — before he suffered his own catastrophic knee injury in October of that season. He was back on the field to begin the 2016 season in Athens, rushing for 222 yards and two touchdowns against North Carolina en route to an 1,100-yard season with a total of 1,216 yards from scrimmage and 13 touchdowns.
He'd best those numbers in 2017 before getting the call from the Cleveland Browns in the draft in 2018, and all he did afterwards was become an All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowler over the four seasons that followed.
Chubb has also returned from a second devastating knee injury, but that fact doesn't apply to what Overshown is up against, seeing as this is the first such injury on the knee in question — his torn ACL suffered in August 2023 having occurred on the opposite one.
And, speaking of that injury, he was on the field for the Cowboys roughly 13 months later and wasted no time making an impact in the opener against the Browns, and was on his way to what seemed like an inevitable Pro Bowl honor in 2024.
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
Finally, as far as comparable injuries go, there is Steele, who undoubtedly will serve as a priceless resource in helping Overshown attack rehab, seeing as Steele tore the ACL, MCL and MPFL in his knee on Dec 11 of the 2022 campaign, on nearly the exact day of the month and point of the season that Overshown suffered his (Dec. 9). The starting right tackle was back on the field in the 2023 opener, nine short months later, playing in 100 percent of the offensive snaps.
It took Steele awhile to get back to peak form, as he's starting to do on the back end of this season, granted, but his career didn't end with the three torn knee ligaments.
With the advancements in modern medicine and the caliber of skill and experience on the Cowboys' medical and athletic training staff — in also personally knowing the facts of Overshown's injury, along with his mental fortitude, work ethic and in how he'll take this challenge head-on with his usual glaring smile and internal light — any allegation of a looming medical retirement is laughable.
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
Could there be a medical setback of some sort that delays his return? That's always a possibility, with any player and with any injury, so that's just stating the obvious, in that regard.
There's also a chance he heals and recovers faster than anticipated (carving his way back onto the field at some point in 2025), as some have done in their recovery, more than one of them being named in this column, but what there is almost zero chance of is Overshown's career being over.
Say it with me, folks:
DeMarvion Overshown is not done.
Hopefully, all of the preposterous notions about what he's incapable of overcoming are, though, because using WebMD doesn't magically award you with a degree in medicine. It just means you paid your internet bill that month.
But, hey, I'm no doctor, either.
I just pay attention.
