You can equip LOCKED player card items from the Battle Pass
Easily done - I have uploaded a video showing how this was achieved - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NECF58r9U6w
- Go to the Battle Pass menu,
- Find something that is LOCKED that you want to equip on your player card (I used the FREE LOCKED
- Prestige Background),
- Hit Inspect, then go back to the Main Menu,
- Go over to Profile, and Edit Playercard,
- Change your dogtag to save changes, and you'll be equipped with the locked item.
In my example, I equipped the Playercard Background, make sure you do not visit the Background tab in Edit Playercard before saving changes.
This is a "soft-unlock" - I was able to carry this over into a match, but after a game restart, you have to repeat.