Randy Moss opens up about cancer battle, return to ESPN for 2025 NFL season
NFL legend Randy Moss is opening up about his battle back from cancer as he prepares to return to ESPN for the 2025 NFL season.
Moss will be back in the broadcast booth on Sept. 7 for ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown," a role he temporarily stepped back from in 2024 after he was diagnosed with bile duct cancer, or cholangiocarcinoma, a rare type of cancer that forms in the bile ducts, the tubes that connect the liver, gallbladder and small intestine, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Moss told "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts that he was diagnosed with the disease after experiencing symptoms including dark-colored urine and yellow eyes from jaundice.
Still, Moss said he was shocked to receive a diagnosis of cancer since he considered himself in good health more than one decade after retiring from the NFL in 2012.
"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 told Roberts in an interview that aired Thursday on "GMA." "It hit like a ton of bricks."
After being given a diagnosis of Stage 2 bile duct cancer, Moss went into what he described as "fight" mode, undergoing a six-hour procedure to remove parts of several organs, followed by both chemotherapy and radiation.
"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," he said. "I put one more 'F' in that, in that category, and that's the 'fight,' because that's what I needed to do."
During his recovery, Moss said his wife Lydia Moss was his primary caregiver. She told Roberts that part of her job was to be by her husband's side, even when he thought he didn't need support.
"It was hard for me, because he didn't want our help, because he's used to doing everything on his own. And as much as he tried to push us away, I think he realized we needed him and he needed us," she said.
She added, "I was kicking down them doors. I was opening up those blinds. I was like, 'Even if I just have to sit here, I'm just gonna sit here. Even if you angry, even if you don't wanna talk, we gonna be here.'"
Randy Moss said it was his wife's advice that he passed onto his longtime friend, University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders, when Sanders faced his own cancer battle earlier this year.
Sanders revealed in July that he took time away from coaching over the summer to undergo treatment for bladder cancer. The retired NFL star said at the same July 28 news conference that his doctors consider him cured from the disease and he has returned to full-time head coaching duties at Colorado.
"One thing that my wife told me is, 'Man, get on out here and let the family love you. They miss you,'" Moss recalled. "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."
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