Kim Singleton swears she knew something was wrong with her son, before anybody truly knew what was wrong with Alex Singleton. She saw something. It was the way he buttoned his pants on that first Sunday of November , she thinks. Or the way he spoke to her, after the Broncos outlasted the Texans in Houston that day.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d watched her son play football since Pop Warner, the same happy-go-lucky kid through 31 years of life . She couldn\u2019t place it. But she knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cMother\u2019s intuition,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n
Perhaps she sensed fear that Sunday, a rare emotion for her son. Worry, at least. Singleton had failed a league-mandated drug test earlier that week, which detected elevated levels of the hormone hCG in his bloodstream. He didn\u2019t know why. He didn\u2019t like not knowing why. But one symptom of elevated hCG in men, Singleton came to learn, was testicular cancer.<\/p>\n
On the bench after one defensive drive against the Texans Nov. 3 \u2014 in the middle of the game \u2014 Singleton sat next to linebacker Justin Strnad and blurted it all out.<\/p>\n
Dude,\u00a0Singleton told Strnad. You\u2019re not gonna believe what happened.<\/p>\n
It was shocking, friend Strnad reflected. It only spiraled. Two doctors\u2019 appointments and an ultrasound on Monday, Nov. 3 confirmed Singleton had a tumor.<\/p>\n
A funny thing happened, on this day that made little sense:\u00a0Singleton came to immediate terms with the fact that a turbulent journey might be over.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a relief, now that I know what it is,\u201d Singleton told friend Evan Yabu over the phone that Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a relief?\u201d Yabu remembered responding. \u201cWhat are you talking about? You got cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a relief, because an unknown had become a known, for a man who was always able to control his own destiny. When Singleton was four, all he wanted to do in life was watch his cousin play football. When he was in eighth grade, all he wanted to do was play varsity football. When he was playing college football at Montana State, all he wanted to do was play pro football. He\u2019d made it in Denver, becoming the head of one of the best defenses in the NFL, after years of failed tryouts and a stint in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex would never walk away if it was up to him,\u201d Kim said. \u201cEver.\u201d<\/p>\n
So he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Three weeks later, Singleton sat with The Denver Post in the lobby of the Broncos\u2019 facility in Dove Valley, entirely grateful to still be there. He will play again on Sunday against the Commanders in Maryland, healthy and cleared after surgery. He\u2019s missed all of one game. The only massive changes in his life have been a horde of social-media messages, an appearance on \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d<\/a> and his own proclamations to advocate for men\u2019s health and early detection.<\/p>\n Singleton, though, will play the rest of this season with a new lease on life. Because he\u2019d already accepted his own football mortality.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s house money,\u201d Singleton grinned.<\/p>\n On Nov. 3, doctors told Singleton that the cancer was perfectly curable. So he told them \u2014 and those in his circle that knew the diagnosis \u2014 that he would play in that Thursday\u2019s game against the Las Vegas Raiders. Singleton didn\u2019t know, then, if the cancer had spread. If it was elsewhere in his body. If it was elsewhere in his brain. If he\u2019d have to undergo chemotherapy. He was perfectly aware that Nov. 6 might be the last football game he would ever play.<\/p>\n If it was the last ride, Singleton was going out on his own terms.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always see the things of \u2014 \u2018You never know the last day you hung out with your friends (as a kid), when the streetlights went on and you went home for the last time,’\u201d Singleton told The Denver Post.<\/p>\n \u201cAt least, if it was going to be last Thursday, I knew when the streetlights were coming on.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n Toward the end of their conversation Nov. 3, after Singleton\u2019s voice had shaken with the word cancer\u00a0and settled back down, his brother Matt asked if he should still plan to come to Broncos-Raiders that Thursday.<\/p>\n Oh yeah, Singleton replied, perking up.\u00a0I\u2019m gonna play.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018OK,’\u201d Matt recounted, bewilderment in his tone.<\/p>\n Ultimately, this hardly surprised his brother. Or his parents. Or anyone who really knew Singleton. There is no real secret to his story. He grew up a boy in Thousand Oaks, California, who only ever wanted to play football. There was a dream, and never really an alternative. He\u2019s never let go of that.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a very smart person,\u201d Matt cracked. \u201cBut he understood football a lot better than he understood school.\u201d<\/p>\n Singleton was a 5-foot-10, 180-pound linebacker in his junior season of high school ball, and suddenly shot up to 6-foot-3 entering his senior year. High school coach Mike Leibin would talk up Singleton to any collegiate coach who came through this office \u2014 with the caveat they couldn\u2019t watch his junior-year film. Because they\u2019d see a 5-foot-10 kid.<\/p>\n That kid ended up with one collegiate offer out of Thousand Oaks, and so Singleton went off to FCS program Montana State . He went undrafted after a standout four-year career, and so he went off to play in the Canadian Football League. In between came a year living at his parents\u2019 home in Thousand Oaks, an endless cycle of working out and calls to try out and hopeful flights across the country and forlorn flights back home.<\/p>\n Mother Kim would putter up to the airport to pick him up after most every failed tryout. There were 16 of them, she estimated. He was cut by the Seahawks twice in the span of five months.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was awful,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n This mattered little. Singleton still smiles remembering what he calls the most fun time in his life: the spring of 2020, when he\u2019d set up a workout circuit in his parents\u2019 garage and invite his buddies to work out. Singleton was grinding to win a linebacker job with the Philadelphia Eagles then, and would enforce what he called \u201c50-calorie sprint\u201d days on stationary bikes.<\/p>\n It was simple enough: spin the pedals as quick as possible until the rider burned 50 calories. Singleton would scribble his friends\u2019 times down on a whiteboard, so they could set personal bests. They all usually ended up staggering out to his front yard to empty their stomachs.<\/p>\n Pure misery, friend Yabu recalled. Singleton would call it something different.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I don\u2019t work a day in my life,\u201d Singleton grinned. \u201cAll those little, cliche sayings \u2014 I do feel that, and I believe that. I tell people all the time, \u2018I play football so I can train in the offseason.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n He won a starting linebacker job in Philadelphia that same fall, and has become the primary communicator in this Broncos defense since arriving in Denver four years ago. He has enjoyed every bit of it, through losing seasons and winning. It would be crazy not to, Singleton said.<\/p>\n The linebacker gained another dosage of appreciation for his situation, too, in the week of his diagnosis. Two days after an ultrasound identified the tumor, the Broncos\u2019 medical staff scheduled a CT scan for Singleton. Those results, he reflected, revealed that the tumor was isolated and hadn\u2019t spread. If he hadn\u2019t been able to get that scan until after surgery \u2014 the normal process of events for most \u2014 he would\u2019ve had to undergo a more invasive surgery that would\u2019ve knocked him out through at least the end of the regular season, Singleton explained.<\/p>\n So why, deep down, did he want to play in that Thursday night game against Las Vegas?<\/p>\n \u201cBecause he could,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n Singleton\u2019s brother Matt flew down with family ahead of that Nov. 6 matchup with Las Vegas, helping take care of Singleton\u2019s nine-month old daughter Tallyn amid a week of practice and conversations with doctors. And Matt suggested to his brother that he had to whip out a celebration, if he came up with a big tackle against Las Vegas. He did not provide any specifics.<\/p>\n Midway through the first quarter that Thursday night, Singleton stuffed Raiders running back Ashton Jeanty for no gain. The linebacker pounded his chest a few times, directly on the \u201cC\u201d on his jersey. Then Singleton turned and stared directly at Matt and his family on the sidelines, put his hand underneath his nether regions, and hopped back and forth<\/a>.<\/p>\n His family broke down laughing. The public only realized the significance of Singleton\u2019s testicle-themed celebration in the coming days, after he revealed his diagnosis.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone does it,\u201d Singleton smiled. \u201cBig nuts, whatever. It\u2019s funny.\u00a0And so I was like, \u2018Oh, if I get a big hit or whatever, a turnover, whatever this week, I\u2019m going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Singleton\u2019s sheer positivity in delivering life-altering news \u2014 actually smiling\u00a0when he told Vance Joseph, the Broncos\u2019 defensive coordinator recalled \u2014 has floored many. One of Singleton\u2019s favorite hoodies is a Barstool Sports product that reads \u201cPositive Vibes Only.\u201d He pulls his hair back in a manbun and wears a grin around the facility in Dove Valley, and has generally carried the demeanor of a lottery winner rather than a cancer patient the last few weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s just relentlessly optimistic,\u201d said Erin Baker, a movement specialist who\u2019s worked with Singleton since the spring of 2024.<\/p>\n This, Singleton attests, comes from older sister Ashley, who was born with Down syndrome and has competed as a Special Olympics athlete for much of her life<\/a>. Singleton has been an outspoken advocate for the Special Olympics and for athletes with mental disabilities<\/a>, as his sister has been one of the most outspoken supporters of his career. Ashley keeps count of her brother\u2019s tackles. And Kim believes her son counts his blessings in life because of his sister.<\/p>\n \u201cIf she can wake up every day and smile, and just enjoy the day?\u201d Singleton said. \u201cLike, I should be able to do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Kim and Ashley watched from their television in Thousand Oaks that Thursday night, because Kim was in no mental state to go in person to watch her son play a football game with an active tumor. And Singleton\u2019s family decided to keep news of his diagnosis from his sister until he\u2019d undergone surgery. Everyone Ashley knew who had cancer, Kim reflected, was dead.<\/p>\n They watched Singleton rack up nine tackles in a win over Las Vegas . Two days later, after doctors successfully removed the tumor, Singleton and his family sat down and told Ashley what happened.<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t understand at first, Kim remembered. Then it clicked. Ashley was devastated. And chastised her family for not telling her earlier.<\/p>\n Eventually, though, as she understood her brother would be okay, Ashley calmed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Okay, alright, you\u2019re fine, good,’\u201d Kim recalled Ashley saying.\u00a0\u201c\u2018When are you going to get more tackles?’\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n On Wednesday, an excited Ashley Singleton pulled up the Broncos\u2019 injury report from practice and read it aloud to her mother.<\/p>\n Alex Singleton. ILB. Illness. Full participant.<\/p>\n Kim knew, of course, that her son was healthy, because he\u2019d sent her a video of him sprinting inside the Broncos\u2019 facility a week earlier.<\/p>\n I\u2019m cleared, Singleton texted his mom.<\/p>\n The linebacker was already one of the Broncos\u2019 elder statesmen, with a lifetime of stories he isn\u2019t shy to share. He is at the center of a defense made up of men that have rarely had it easy in this game. Defensive end John Franklin-Myers didn\u2019t win a game of high school football, and played college ball at the FCS level. Defensive tackle D.J. Jones came up from famed \u201cLast Chance U\u201d junior college East Mississippi Community College . Nickelback Ja\u2019Quan McMillian went undrafted out of East Carolina University . Chips stack on the shoulders of this defense, and Singleton is its captain.<\/p>\n \u201cHis example is what carries us,\u201d Joseph said, \u201cand leads us.\u201d<\/p>\n The last few weeks have only earned Singleton more respect, in a locker room that\u2019s already seen him pull off the improbable. In 2024, he hurt his knee early against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, played the rest of the game, and racked up 10 tackles. It was only after the game when he\u2019d learned he\u2019d torn his ACL.<\/p>\n After season-ending surgery, Singleton has returned in 2025 to play some of the best football of his career, with 89 tackles in 10 games.<\/p>\n \u201cPut another tally to his name, just how much of a fighter he is,\u201d second-year linebacker Levelle Bailey told The Post. \u201cNot only as a player, but as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n