Former NFL Players Leaned on God and Each Other During Cancer Battles

Published: September 8, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

Former NFL players Randy Moss and Deion Sanders leaned on each other as they both battled cancer over the past year.

“He called me, and the first thing he said was ‘I need you,” Moss told Robin Roberts in an interview with GOOD MORNING AMERICA.

Moss disclosed he had cancer outside his bile duct last December, forcing him to exit his role as an ESPN analyst.

He felt extremely “overwhelmed” when he received the news.

“I just think that when you live your life, you know, a certain type of way of, you know, eating right, taking care of your health, and all of a sudden you get diagnosed with cancer…I was overwhelmed,” Moss said. “It hit like a ton of bricks.”

He underwent a “six-hour procedure to remove parts of several organs, followed by both chemotherapy and radiation,” per GMA.

“I talk about my faith in the Lord. I talk about how much I love my family. And I talk about the game that I grew up loving at a small age, and that’s football,” Moss shared. “I put one more ‘F’ in that, in that category, and that’s the ‘fight,’ because that’s what I needed to do.”

@gma

“The only thing I always prayed to God was, ‘God just get me to 50.'” NFL legend Randy Moss opened up to Robin Roberts about his journey with cancer and issued a plea to other men to go see a doctor before it’s “too late.” news randymoss nfl

♬ original sound – Good Morning America – Good Morning America

Sanders, meanwhile, was diagnosed with bladder cancer, which he announced over the summer, reaching out to Moss for support.

“I’m struggling with this, I haven’t left my bedroom for like four or five days,” Sanders told his friend.

“And I just said, ‘Prime, I know what you’re going through, because when I got home, I didn’t want to leave my bedroom,’” Moss recalled, per PEOPLE.

“One thing that my wife told me is, ‘Man, get on out here and let the family love you. They miss you,'” Moss said. “So, that’s the same message I gave Coach Prime, and he did that, and right when he did that, he texted me back a couple days and told me thank you.”

Sanders revealed in July that he underwent successful treatment to beat the cancer, thanking Jesus for his healing.

Since being able to help Sanders, Moss has been able to heal emotionally as well.

“That was more of a burden lifted off of my chest because of what I’ve been going through over the last couple of years that I could finally be there for somebody,” he explained. “I think there’s a lot of, when I say selfish men, I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way. I think it’s more that, you don’t want to go see that doctor before it’s too late.”

Praise God that both men are on the mend and can rely on one another as they prepare to tackle another football season.

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