After arduous 430-day journey, Cowboys rookie CB Shavon Revel is ready for NFL debut – Joseph Hoyt, Dallas Morning News
After over a year of being on the sidelines, Shavon Revel Jr. will be on the field against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 11.
FRISCO — The NFL Draft is a culmination of one journey and the beginning of another.
That transition sparked a question to Cowboys rookie Shavon Revel moments after he was selected in the third round back in April: What advice would you have for your younger self?
“Just take it slow,” Revel said, still coming to grips with the fact that he was just selected. “Take your time. Go at your own pace and learn how to maneuver and go through life and ask questions.”
Seven months later, and more than 14 months after he tore his ACL, Revel will be eligible to make that long-awaited NFL debut when the Cowboys play in Las Vegas against the Raiders on Monday night.
The Cowboys have high hopes for his future. They believed he had first-round talent. He believed that, too, saying after he was selected that he thought he was the top corner in the draft, only falling because of the injury he sustained three games into his final season at East Carolina.
Now that the opportunity to play has arrived, Revel hasn’t strayed from the outlook he had on draft night. He was asked on Friday if the recovery process took longer than he expected.
“I didn’t really think into it that much,” said Revel, who’s been a full participant at practice each of the last two days. “I approached it as I play today, not tomorrow, because I can’t control what happens the next day. To that day, I work my hardest, busted my butt, and kept going.”
Cowboys set to get key reinforcements on defense for Raiders clash – Todd Archer, ESPN
Dallas is as healthy as they’ve been in a long time.
FRISCO, Texas — At different points this season, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has talked about how help is on the way for a beleaguered defense.
On Monday against the Las Vegas Raiders, that help will arrive with the returns from serious knee injuries of linebacker DeMarvion Overshown and rookie cornerback Shavon Revel Jr., as well as the trade-deadline pickups of All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and linebacker Logan Wilson.
Overshown and Revel have practiced for the past three weeks, and Williams and Wilson have gone through two practices this week after being acquired before the Cowboys’ bye week.
Overshown suffered torn anterior cruciate, medial collateral and posterior cruciate ligaments in his right knee against the Cincinnati Bengals on Dec. 9, 2024. At the time, there was no guarantee Overshown would be able to play at all in 2025. The only sign of his injury will be a brace on his knee.
“I just want him to play free,” coach Brian Schottenheimer said. “I really do. I don’t want to put too much pressure on D-Mo. He hasn’t played in a long time, but he hasn’t forgotten how to play either. But I will know this: He will be running to the football. He will be making plays.”
At the time of his injury, Overshown was the Cowboys’ second-leading tackler and he had 5.5 sacks. The Cowboys have discussed a pitch count with him.
“That’s what you want to do coming off of any injury, especially for a guy that ain’t played in 300-something days,” Overshown said. “But we already know, man, it’s winning football time. So when the time comes, when the situation comes, if I’m at that play count or that limit, we already done made the conversations where look, (if) it’s a play that needs to be made, I got to be on the field.”
Williams, acquired from the New York Jets for a 2026 second-round pick, a 2027 first-round pick and defensive tackle Mazi Smith, has not played since Oct. 26, with the Jets having their bye week heading into the trade deadline.
Last week, Williams said he put himself through a “mock game,” with a number of sprints to make sure he was OK physically heading into the Raiders game. He said this is the longest he has gone without playing while healthy.
Cowboys coping with aftermath of Marshawn Kneeland’s tragic death, will lean on Dak Prescott for guidance – Garrett’s Podell, CBS Sports
Dak Prescott is the ultimate team leader.
Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott, like Thomas, is unfortunately familiar with suicide too since he lost his brother Jace to it in 2020. He also never saw signs that Kneeland was struggling, which is why he is emphasizing that everyone put more into knowing people beyond the surface.
“Yeah, guilt is tricky. Guilt is one of those things that when those thoughts come in, that’s where you first have to counteract and counter thoughts. To go off of what Solomon said, ‘yeah, there were no signs.’ Respect to the family, they don’t want to go down and tag this as mental health. With that being said, yeah there were no signs,” Prescott said Thursday. “I crossed him a lot, passed him a lot through the hot tub, through the cold tub, through the training room and far opposite of any signs. There was never really isolation. There wasn’t a time that Marshawn wasn’t talking, wasn’t open or putting smiles on people’s faces. So it’s tough to even talk to these two things hand in hand. For me, it’s a moment of a cup run over. That’s why it’s important for us to connect, just communicate, talk, vent and just try to get things off our plates as much as we can and just be there even when you feel like you’re not. Your presence matters.”
Guilt and grief can sometimes turn to anger, which is an emotion Prescott finds himself dealing with in times like these. That’s when he leans on the training he and his teammates have received from team psychologist Dr. Heather Twedel and other mental health professionals the Cowboys brought in to speak with players over the last week. His key takeaways from those sessions are to be vulnerable and let everything out in order to actually process and work through whatever emotions are bubbling up inside.
“Obviously me and Solly have been through this, but I’ll be the first to say, I may be the champion of speaking up but I’m not necessarily the champion of dealing with grief, I guess you can say. I can say I’m a champion of moving forward and past it and using it as your source of strength,” Prescott said. … “I get angry a lot. The best way is when I get angry or I get sad in those moments, I think about ‘how can I counteract that?’ Usually, it’s ‘how can I make somebody smile or how can I do something better?’ So just little things like that have been helpful. I know they’ve been helpful to me. … I’ve taken a lot from those conversations from O2X, from Doctor T [team psychologist Dr. Heather Twedel], from the professionals and have brought them into smaller conversations as we’ve had breakouts or just hot tub talk or conversations at lunch. It’s just the more we can talk, the more we can connect, that’s the only good in this honestly at this moment. Reminds us how important it is to not just know these jersey numbers, but to know the family and to know things beyond this building.”
Here We Goooo: Three keys for the Cowboys against the Raiders – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com
Taking a look at what the Cowboys need to do to beat the Raiders on Monday night.
FRISCO, Texas – After a long and incredibly difficult bye week, the Cowboys will be back in action on Monday night against the Las Vegas Raiders.
In their 24 road games following a bye, Dallas has gone 15-9 in those settings, the most road wins after a bye in the NFL since 1990. A win on Monday would push the Cowboys to a 4-5-1 record, an essential win that would keep them alive – albeit a big hill to climb – in the playoff race.
What needs to happen for Dallas to come away with a victory? Let’s talk about it in this week’s Here We Goooo:
Hit Ashton Jeanty early, can’t miss tackles
In the draft process, the Cowboys loved now Raiders RB Ashton Jeanty. Well, every team in the NFL actually was enamored with the former Boise State Bronco who finished as the runner up for the Heisman Trophy in 2024.
Now, Dallas’ defense will travel to face the player that went to high school at Frisco Lone Star just 15 minutes away from the team’s headquarters at the Star. Through nine games this season, Jeanty has 547 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns.
What made Jeanty special coming out of college was the fact that he seemingly never went down to the ground on first contact. That skillset has translated to the NFL level too, as he’s forced 47 missed tackles and gained 228 yards off of them. His 33.1% missed tackles forced rate is the second highest in the NFL trailing only Jonathan Taylor.
Jeanty has just 87 yards rushing before contact this season, with a majority of his workload coming after he’s been hit with 460 yards after contact this season. While that’s a good chunk teams have also been able to stuff him 41 times this year, the most in the NFL from running backs with 100 or more carries.
Defensively, the Cowboys have missed 55 tackles this season, the 13th highest in the NFL this season. The Cowboys have missed a tackle on 24.1% of their tackle attempts on running back carries, which comes in right about the league average of 23.5%. This is where Dallas’ deadline acquisitions of Quinnen Williams and Logan Wilson can make the biggest impact: Not only making the plays in the run game when it’s presented to them but taking attention so that their teammates can make the plays as well.
Stopping Jeanty is no easy task, but teams have been able to do it consistently this year, giving the Cowboys a prime opportunity to maybe find some momentum defensively against the run going into a very difficult schedule to close out the year.
Week 11 should feature a new-look defense for the Dallas Cowboys – Brian Martin, Blogging The Boys
Things will be a little different defensively for the Cowboys with the additions of Qunnien Williams and Logan Wilson plus the return of DeMarvion Overshown.
Defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and linebacker Logan Wilson will be immediate impact players, even though they just arrived recently via trade. It shouldn’t take either of them long to get up to speed considering Matt Eberflus’ scheme isn’t all that complicated or complex. They aren’t the only new faces who could make their season debut with the Cowboys this week.
The Cowboys recently activated LB DeMarvion Overshown and rookie CB Shavon Revel to the active roster after both spent the first half of the season on injured reserve recovering from season-ending knee injuries. If 100% healthy, both Overshown and Revel could help upgrade their given positions and in turn improve the overall defense moving forward. But, it may be wise to bring them along slowly as a precaution.
Overshown’s return to the field is particularly intriguing considering he was playing like a superstar prior to his season-ending knee injury last year. The Cowboys now know what they have in him and are probably hoping he can pick up where he left off last season as one of their best defensive players prior to injury. His sideline-to-sideline speed and playmaking ability could provide a much-needed spark to Eberflus’ defense.
This year’s third-round draft pick, CB Shavon Revel, is a bit more of a mystery. He was considered a first-round pick before a season-ending injury ended his season prematurely last year, which is why there are those who believe he was a draft day steal for the Cowboys. Expectations for him should be tempered, even though Dallas’ secondary desperately needs a shot in the arm.
