Among the Dallas Cowboys additions in free agency last week, safety P.J. Locke -- a Beaumont native -- signed a one-year deal to return to his home state after six seasons with the Denver Broncos.
Heading into his third NFL contract, it was a reality he didn’t think he’d see just two years ago.
For years, Locke had battled aggravating back pain, but he chalked it up to the usual bumps and bruises of the NFL. But in 2024, it grew into something much more concerning.
“In 2024, I signed a new deal with the Broncos,” Locke said. “I had been dealing with the back pain over the course of my career. It hadn’t been bad, I just had gotten treatment. It progressed so bad during the season. I started getting bad nerve pain. Throughout the games, I was losing the strength in my leg. Ultimately, it affected my confidence and my movement.”
Locke had gotten a medical opinion on the issue before, but it was time to get re-evaluated. After the season, a doctor highly recommended a procedure that could relieve the pain -- but it could also end his football career.
“It wasn’t necessarily a thing where I had to do it,” he said. “But he advised me to do it. He told me that I needed to be OK with never playing football again if I do the surgery. The downfall of not getting it, if I took the wrong hit, I could sever a nerve and I’d have a dead leg. After football, watching my son grow up and coaching him through sports and stuff like that, that’s the stuff I was thinking about.”
The decision was a no-brainer. He had the surgery last offseason with the risk of potentially never playing again being on the table. Fortunately for him, that was not the case.
“Luckily, everything ended up working out,” Locke said. “I healed really well, and it was just a miracle how my body healed up. It’s a true testament to what God can do. I’m here today because of that.”
While the recovery was swift -- he said he didn’t need any injections or any added treatment -- it was a long process to get back to the field. But after an injury in front of him on the depth chart opened up an opportunity, Locke never looked back.
“I didn’t necessarily start last year, but things took a turn of events when Brandon Jones got hurt,” he said. “I went out there feeling better than ever before having a new back and everything. I didn’t have that same nerve pain going through [my body] ...I felt like I was playing a bit more free. I wasn’t playing with that in the back of my head that my leg could go out.”
”Making those plays that I did, honestly, it’s just a miracle that God provided me an opportunity to have all of these different offers in the free agency process.”
Free agency brought a new challenge, but a conversation with his wife about where they would eventually decide to lay down their family roots resonated. It led them to Dallas.
“Me and my wife, for the past two years, we’ve been trying to figure out where we’re going to live,” Locke said. “Obviously, I’m from Beaumont and that’s closer to Houston. She’s from Fort Worth, so Dallas area. We just went back-and-forth, never really progressed. The fact that I’m playing with the Cowboys backed me into a corner of I have to be in Dallas after football, and my son is getting ready to start kindergarten.”
The full circle moments don’t just end at Locke and his family returning to the Lone Star State. After spending three seasons with new Cowboys defensive coordinator Christian Parker in Denver when he was the Broncos’ passing game coordinator, the two theorized linking back up one day. Little did they both know it would be in Dallas.
“I remember when CP was leaving to go to the Eagles,” Locke said. “He had his aspirations of being a DC someday. We talked about, ‘Man, if I become a free agent at the time he becomes a DC, we’re going to make this thing happen.’ It’s so crazy how he’s the DC with the Cowboys, I’m from Texas, my wife is from Fort Worth. It just all clicked.”
For a Texas boy whose family bled Cowboys’ blue while he was growing up, everything just made too much sense for him to sign with Dallas. Now, he will look toward the new chapter in his career.