The Week 11 edition of “Monday Night Football” also serves as a battle for Texas bragging rights, with the Houston Texans (6-4) coming to AT&T Stadium to take on the Dallas Cowboys (3-6).
The two teams are going in opposite directions with the Texans in first place in the AFC South and the Cowboys in the midst of a four-game losing streak. However, that doesn’t mean in-state bragging rights don’t mean something to these teams. Dallas second-year linebacker DeMarvion Overshown is from the small town of Arp, Texas, which is approximately 140 miles southeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. He also attended the University of Texas and proudly represents his small-town Texas heritage, regularly wearing authentic cowboy hats, big buckles, and boots. For Texas natives like Overshown, Monday night means a little more than any regular-season football game.
“It’s the battle of Texas. I know they are [the Texans] pretty new to the league [becoming a team in 2002]and they are not a team where we can go backwards all the time and time tells us so. When it’s the battle for Texas, especially with them having the season they’re having, a team that they think they run the state,” Overshown said Friday on a conference call. “Even though it’s a bad year for us, we still rule the state of Texas. “So we have to go out with that pride and that mentality that this is still our state and we are still the big brothers.”
Although he was a third-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, 2024 is actually Overshown’s rookie year after he tore his ACL in the preseason a year ago. He has burst onto the scene with his speed and pass rush ability from the inside linebacker position, racking up a team-high 4.0 sacks in 2024, including a Week 1 sack of Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson . that left his three-time All-Pro teammate, Micah Parsons, speechless.. That play led Parsons to declare Overshown a future All-Pro after one game of his career. With four sacks in his first nine games, Overshown joined Parsons (6.0), Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware (4.0) and Jay Ratliff (4.0) as the only four Cowboys players since sacks were recorded as an official statistic (since 1982) they have had at least four sacks in their first nine games. If Overshown were to record a sack of Houston Texans quarterback CJ Stroud on Monday night, he would trail only Parsons (8.0) for most sacks by a Cowboys player in the first 10 games of his career. The 24-year-old credits Parsons for his own early development.
“Any player who is lucky enough to play with Micah Parsons will see that he pays a lot of attention to him, and if you have two or three guys blocking one, there is no reason why the other 10 shouldn’t win their battle,” Overshown said. “So I definitely don’t take that for granted, and I look at it as an opportunity to get mine. I think just playing with each other we know that ‘hey, if he’s not there, I’ll be there.'” I’m not there, he’ll be there. “. So, having that type of relationship and knowing that we support each other. I know that’s how we feel about everyone on the defensive side of the ball. That’s really the culture we’re trying to achieve on that side of the ball… Micah and I have shared how excited and ready we are to play together because we know how we play.
The Texans won their first game as an NFL franchise against the Cowboys in Week 1 of the 2002 season, but Dallas has the all-time lead over Houston with wins in six of their eight matchups. The football world will find out Monday night if the struggling Cowboys can maintain their big brother status or if their lead over the Texans will now be recognized as a brand only in 2024.
