Starter on Super Bowl Defense Battling Cancer
Josh Evans survived being stabbed. Shot too.
Now, the former Tennessee Titans defensive tackle – a starter in Super Bowl XXXIV – is in the fight of his life following a dire cancer diagnosis.
Evans, 47, is at an Atlanta cancer center where doctors determined that the disease, first diagnosed earlier this year, has spread to his spine and liver, according to prominent Titans fan Penny Kennedy, who has remained close to Evans since his playing days.
Originally, tumors were discovered on his kidneys, gall bladder, intestines and pancreas in January. Following treatment, doctors were optimistic that they had removed all of the cancer, Kennedy said.
Evans played 94 games in a nine-year NFL career, the first six of which he spent with the Oilers/Titans. At 6-foot-2, 275 pounds, he was undersized for the position but overcame that with a relentlessly competitive approach.
Then again, nothing ever came easy to him.
Undrafted out of Alabama-Birmingham, he first signed with the Dallas Cowboys in 1995, joined the then-Houston Oilers after he was released and spent the majority of his first season on the practice squad. He became a starter in 1998, the franchise’s second (and final) year as the Tennessee Oilers.
An admitted marijuana enthusiast while playing in the NFL, he served a four-game suspension at the start of 1999 for violation of the league’s substance abuse policy and then was suspended for all of 2000 following a subsequent violation. He started every game for the Titans in 2001 before he played the final three seasons of his career with the New York Jets. He finished second on the team and seventh among all NFL defensive tackles with five and a half sacks in 2001.
Evans grew up in Lannett, Ala., where he encountered trouble as a youth. He said he was shot in the hip in 1992 and stabbed in the head and shoulder three times in 1993 but survived.
“It was small town but there was so much trouble there,” he told the New York Post leading up to Super Bowl XXXIV. “… After going through all that pain I said, I don’t want to be a gangster no more.”
Eventually, he became a force in the NFL.
Few players had more of an impact during the 1999 playoff run that led to the franchise’s only Super Bowl appearance. He had a sack in the wild card victory over Buffalo and a half a sack for a safety in the AFC Championship victory at Jacksonville.
Super Bowl XXXIV was played in Atlanta, where Evans finds himself once again.
"I played in a Super Bowl and had a great game,” Evans said in a press release when he retired. “That was a dream of mine since I could remember dreaming. I was blessed enough to experience that. There's 100 million people growing up wishing to experience something like that, and fortunately for me, I got that chance."
