FRISCO — Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens agreed with the description of linebacker DeMarvion Overshown’s vibe as “infectious.”

How can one not feel this way about the Cowboys linebacker? He started practice on Wednesday, beginning his 21-day window to return from a knee injury suffered last December.

Overshown said his goal was to return for the Thanksgiving Day game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Now, after rehabbing all summer, listening to the defensive play calls of coordinator Matt Eberflus and just providing positive energy, he’s targeting an earlier date.

Overshown said he wants to return for the Monday night game on Nov. 17 at Las Vegas.

“That game, I mean, that’s what we’re looking like. Monday night prime time. Zero (jersey number) will be making his debut,” Overshown said after being limited in Wednesday’s practice. “I’m excited for it. It’s not going to be anything short of extraordinary. I’m ready to show truly how blessed I am. A lot of people claim that this knee injury is one of the worst of the worst and not too many people come back the same afterward. I’m ready to put that to the test.”

The damage to both knees, particularly the right one, sounds severe, but a closer looks reveal it could have been worse than previously known.

In August 2023, Overshown tore the ACL in his left knee in the first half of a preseason game.

Doctors typically take the patella ligament from the other knee to repair the ACL. But Overshown said that the patella ligament was repaired in high school and it was near perfect, so doctors elected to look elsewhere.

They thought about taking the hamstring or quad to use in repairing the ACL.

“Now you lose power,” he said. “So we didn’t want to do that.”

The ACL was repaired and then last year, he suffered damage to three ligaments in the right knee. But it wasn’t as bad as feared.

He did tear the ACL, so that was repaired, but the MCL tore off the bone and that was just re-attached. The PCL healed on its own, with Overshown saying there was “no loose strains, nothing. I had the best possible outcome you could have. No nerve damage. Nothing like that.”

Surgery to all three ligaments in a knee didn’t occur, just the repairing of the ACL, which in sports these days, isn’t a career-ender.

So, when Overshown says he feels blessed, and he did several times on Wednesday, you believe him.

“Who am I not to wake up every day with a smile on my face and enjoy the joys that (God) has blessed me with?” Overshown said. “Over this last 300 and I think 317 days, I‘ve been injured, I’ve been blessed with a kid, been blessed to be engaged, but I just been blessed to be around people that genuinely care for me and love me. So I didn’t lose any sleep. I woke up every day smiling. I came here every day smiling and I knew once I got my opportunity again, look it was time to go and it’s that time. It’s time to go.”

The 317 days is a correct amount of time from when Overshown was injured, Dec. 9, to when he first officially started practice. And if you add the Raiders game for his expected debut, Nov. 17, it’s 343 days between games. That’s nearly a year for a player who missed his rookie season in 2023 with the torn ACL, only to come back last year and get hurt after playing 13 games.

Overshown’s play, despite just the 13 games in Year 2 of his career, has given the coaches glimpses of how good he can be. The Cowboys’ linebacker group has taken criticism this season for their play in zone coverage and against the run.

The return of Overshown might change a few things with that group.

“I’m stronger, and we’ve got the numbers to prove it,” he said. “But stronger, faster, jump higher, more explosive. You name it, I’m all of it. My game, it’s not going to slow down. I think one of the worst things I heard over my rehab time was, ‘Man, you’ve got to slow down. We need you to play a full season. You’ve got to slow down.’ But that ain’t how I play. I know how to play one way, and that’s 100, full speed and that’s all you’re going to see. So the knee is stronger than strong.”