CINCINNATI -- Devon Still is just two months past his 25th birthday. He only feels much older.
Still is a defensive lineman with the Cincinnati Bengals, a third-year player the team selected in the second round of the NFL Draft in 2012. His playing career, to this point, has been unremarkable due in part to a multitude of injuries, due in part to a wealth of talented players at his position group. Players can survive injuries for only so long. The NFL is cut-throat. At some point when your value to the team diminishes, so does your job.
While the league, Commissioner Roger Goodell and the Baltimore Ravens are doing everything possible to distance themselves from Ray Rice, the Bengals are doing everything possible to keep Still in their family. While Goodell battles allegations of a cover-up involving the video evidence of Rice knocking out his then-fiancee Janay Palmer with one punch in an Atlantic City casino hotel last February, Still endures on a daily basis watching his 4-year-old daughter, Leah, battle a rare form of cancer known as neuroblastoma.
Ray Rice has since married his fiancee. He has somehow avoided a third-degree aggravated assault charge by being allowed to enter a pretrial intervention program and stay out of jail. If he completes the program, his record could be purged of the charge.
There is no diversionary program for Leah to go through. She has rounds of chemo.
Still publicly announced his daughter's health condition in June. The Bengals have allowed him time off as necessary to take care of her first. He missed time during the team's offseason workouts to be with Leah. He was cut at the end of the preseason but signed to the Bengals' practice squad a couple of days later. At least on the practice squad he and his family were still covered under the NFL's health insurance.
Defensive line coach Jay Hayes called Still Tuesday morning. Hayes asked Still if he was ready to play football. No amount of sleep in the eye was going to get Still to say anything but yes.
"They told me when I get a chance to make it over to the stadium," said Still. "I rolled right out of bed and I made it over in about five minutes later before they changed their mind."
Still met with head coach Marvin Lewis. Before Lewis was going to sign Still back to the regular 53-man roster he wanted to make sure Still was in the right frame of mind.
"I sat down with him (Tuesday) and we were looking at some players on tape and I said 'Who is better, these guys or Devon Still?'" said Lewis. "He said 'Devon Still.' That's what I believe too. I said 'Where are you? Are you ready to do this again?' And he was, so that's good."
Still understands his platform. He doesn't want his child to have cancer but he has accepted the situation and making the best of it.
"I said when I first came out to talk about my daughter having cancer, one of the main things I wanted to do was raise awareness for pediatric cancer," said Still. "I didn't want her fight to be for no reason. I wanted to bring light upon every family and every child who's going through this same battle so that they can receive help from outside people."
There was no Devon Still jersey available for purchase at the team's pro shop when team officials made the decision a couple of days ago to order some up, with the proceeds of sales of the $100 jersey going to benefit pediatric cancer research at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. In the first 24 hours after the team tweeted out the sale, 100 jerseys were bought. In the second 24 hours orders for more than 1,000 jerseys had been ordered.
According to Jeff Berding, Bengals director of sales and public affairs, the average good day of sales for the jersey of a star player -- someone of the like of Chad Johnson or Carson Palmer when they were with the team a few years ago or Andy Dalton or A.J. Green of this current team -- is between 5-10 jerseys.
"I think it's great. Mr. Brown is known for doing that," said cornerback Adam Jones, speaking of owner and team president Mike Brown. "The people upstairs, they really care about the players and I think that was a great job, what they did for (Still)."
Still has set up a fundraising campaign through the website www.pldgit.com where people can pledge donations based on the number of sacks the Bengals defense produces this season. The donations will be split equally between Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The Bengals had three sacks in their 23-16 win at Baltimore last Sunday to open the season. Two of the sacks came on consecutive plays after the Ravens had driven to the Cincinnati 16-yard line with 1:09 to play. Defensive end Wallace Gilberry got to Joe Flacco for the first one himself. He teamed up with safety Reggie Nelson for the second one that wrapped up the victory and something more.
"I knew exactly what it meant," said Still. "I wished from the start of the game that we'd get sacks. It took us awhile to get some but the guys who did get the sacks I definitely thanked them for what they did after the game on the bus. I just let them know how much it means to everybody who's going up against this cancer."
Still is hoping to get into this Sunday's home opener against Atlanta and generate some donation money himself. He's even got a dance for Leah already in mind. The dance was born as a way for Still to make Leah laugh a little.
"We have a dance that me and my daughter came up with which is called the pee dance," said Still. "That came about because she's on so many different IVs throughout the night she continues to pee the bed. The first time she peed the bed she got mad because she kept saying she's a big girl, she's not supposed to pee the bed and now she has to wear pull-ups."
Still noticed during one of those episodes how Leah would wiggle a certain wiggle as she attempted to keep from urinating. He imitated it for her one day. She laughed at Dad.
"Every time she does it we continue to do that dance just to give her something to laugh about and not be so ashamed that she's peeing in bed because she can't control what's going on," said Still. "I'm definitely going to do that if I get a sack."
