The Cowboys’ Monday linebacker update pointed toward a careful rearrangement rather than a grand restoration: DeMarvion Overshown is expected to return at weak-side linebacker, while rookie Jaishawn Barham keeps the middle spot and the green-dot responsibility.
That is the right shape for Dallas if Overshown is cleared to play. The team can add his speed and coverage ability without immediately asking a player who has missed five games to resume every assignment he held before his hamstring injury. A comeback does not need to become a full defensive reset.
The update came from Cowboys executive Stephen Jones during a Monday afternoon radio appearance. Jones said Overshown has a strong chance to play in the upcoming Monday night game at Philadelphia. He did not provide medical clearance, and Dallas has not promised that Overshown will be active.
A hamstring injury can turn an optimistic practice week into a late inactive designation, and even clearance would not establish a full workload.
The need became clearer Sunday in Green Bay. Linebacker Dee Winters suffered an Achilles strain and left during the second quarter of Dallas’ 23-13 defeat. He did not return, and Jones said Winters is expected to miss time without offering a precise timetable or announcing an injured-reserve move.
Winters had produced Dallas’ first interception of the season before the return was overturned, so the Cowboys are losing an available defender as well as a possible replacement for his role.
That context makes Overshown’s projected assignment sensible, but it also keeps the enthusiasm in bounds. A player returning from a Week 1 hamstring injury is not automatically the same player who occupied a prominent role in 2024. The practical question is how to get his useful traits onto the field while limiting the number of responsibilities changing around him.
The value of a familiar position
Dallas’ account of Overshown’s 2024 work highlighted speed and coverage ability. Those qualities fit the weak-side, or WILL, position, where a linebacker often has to move in space and handle coverage responsibilities without being the defense’s central traffic controller on every snap.
There is also a useful piece of continuity already in place. Barham, a third-round pick, has handled the middle-linebacker job and the green dot since Overshown went down against the Giants in Week 1. He has had weeks to practice relaying the defensive call and operating from the center of the front.
That experience is still limited, but it is experience the Cowboys would be discarding if they immediately moved him aside.
