NFL legends Randy Moss and Deion Sanders may have had different approaches to the game when it comes to football, but they were recently able to find some common ground when it comes to challenges with their health. And now, Moss is opening up about it.
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As we previously told you, in December 2024, Moss shocked viewers when he and ESPN announced that he’d be taking a step back from his duties on “Sunday NFL Countdown.” At the time, they both cited a “personal health challenge” as the reason for his temporary absence but no further details were given.
Now, in a new interview on “Good Morning America” on Thursday (Sept. 4), Moss finally revealed that he’d been battling bile duct cancer. Describing the moment he learned of his diagnosis, the NFL Hall of Famer said that the news hit him like “a ton of bricks.”
“I just think that when you live your life a certain type of way of eating right, taking care of your health, and all of a sudden you get diagnosed with cancer…I was overwhelmed,” Moss explained.
He went on to detail how he had to undergo a six-hour surgery and went through chemotherapy and radiation. Once he got cleared and was able to enter his rest and recovery phase, things were difficult as the pro-footballer battled with finding the will to leave his bed or room for days. Thankfully his wife stepped in and pushed for him to start inching closer and closer back to his normal self day by day.
Now, you’re probably wondering just how Sanders fits into all of this. Well, Sanders revealed at the end of July that he’d fought and beaten bladder cancer. But after undergoing surgery to have his bladder removed, he — like Moss –struggled to get back in the groove of his old self.
So, he called up Moss for some advice on how to get over the hump given his own journey. For Moss though, that phone call was seen as an opportunity to help out another “brother,” as he sadly didn’t spend as much time with his own blood brother who passed away in 2019 of heart failure. Realizing that Sanders’ reaching out reminded him of that moment, he relayed the same message to him that his wife gave him.
“One thing that my wife told me is, ‘Man, get on out of here and let the family love you. They miss you,’” he said.
Sanders would go on to take the advice and later thanked Moss via text for his help and encouragement.
“That was more of a burden lifted up 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,” Moss told “GMA.”
He later added that he hopes his story and Sanders’ will encourage men to go get checked out more by their doctors and take their health seriously.
“I think that there’s a lot of – when I say, ‘selfish men,’ I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way. We just (have) that macho: ‘I don’t need a doctor to tell me what’s going on with me,’” he said. “I think for me it’s just more that you don’t want to go see that doctor before it’s too late.”
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