Josh Hines-Allen just cracked the NFL’s Top 100 list at No. 63. A comeback moment after what he calls a “down year.” The Jaguars‘ pass rusher didn’t mince words about it either. “I’m honored to be on the list with my peers. I just know where I was the year before. Now, knowing where I’m at after last year, it’s time to go back up.” But behind the helmet, this season’s grind hits different. Because while football honors stack up, life’s been throwing him the kind of hurdles no playbook prepares you for.

Some battles don’t happen on the gridiron. And the one his family’s been fighting? It’s changed everything – from how he views the game to how he sees the world. What started as a personal fight for his son Wesley soon cracked his heart wide open in ways he never expected…The football field will test any man’s toughness. But nothing could prepare Josh Hines-Allen for the fight his 7-year-old son Wesley would face – or how it would redefine what strength really means.

In a vulnerable moment during interviews this preseason, the Jaguars star shared their journey since Wesley’s diagnosis last January, “Six months ago, man, you couldn’t ask me this question, but now it’s like we’re at peace. You know, he has a few more, he has one more month and then he’s cancer-free. Well, he’s cancer-free right now, actually,” Hines said. “He’s in full remission, which is a blessing. And so once you hear that news, it’s like…Whew! But it’s still another… It’s still more fight to do, so… But right now, we’re happy.” 

Last January, a sudden fever and a bleeding tooth sent Wesley to Nemours Children’s Health, where doctors diagnosed acute promyelocytic leukemia. The timing gutted him – Hines-Allen missed Jacksonville’s season finale, but his teammates never let him feel alone. “They text me dang near every day, especially during the offseason: ‘How’s Wesley?'” he shared. “Not even ‘Josh, how are you doing?’ It’s ‘How’s Wesley?’ They message family first at all times.”

What sticks with him now isn’t just Wesley’s resilience, but the other kids fighting without that safety net. “My mind went to the people that don’t have this type of touch, this type of affection,“ he admits. He even admitted the strength of his child and how he handles the stress. Hines added, “The resilience is crazy for kids. He’s not worried about, you know, cancer. He’s not worried about things that are happening. And that’s why, like, it shocks me. And so it just makes me like, okay, I can’t show weakness. I can’t show that I’m scared and I’m nervous, that I gotta put a smile on my face and attack each day.”

Of course, he sees the kids who “don’t have the love and support of their family members.” This makes him realize that his baby is surrounded by all the love he needs. Now, he is at least happy to find his child in full remission. But let’s not forget, for Hines-Allen, the real work begins now. Because watching Wesley fight taught him something unexpected about the families battling alone in those hospital hallways…

Josh Hines-Allen pays forward Wesley’s miracle

The hardest moments in that children’s hospital weren’t the beeping machines or the endless treatments. They were the quiet spaces between. Josh Hines-Allen noticed them immediately: the empty chairs next to kids who should have been surrounded by family, the solitary figures in waiting rooms scrolling phones with no one to hold their hands. Even as Wesley fought his own battle with leukemia, surrounded by grandparents, teammates, and an entire NFL community, his father couldn’t unsee those gaps.

Now, with Wesley ringing the remission bell this September, the Hines-Allen family is turning that awareness into action through their Four One For All foundation. The Four One For Hope campaign launches like a fourth-quarter comeback – urgent, deliberate, and all-hands-on-deck. Each month of the 2025 season will spotlight a different cancer nonprofit. Starting with Nemours Children’s Health (“where Wesley’s miracle happened,” as Josh calls it), then rolling through the American Cancer Society in October, the Ronald McDonald House in November, and the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation in December.

But this goes deeper than fundraising thermometers. It’s about recreating the support system that carried them through. “People have shown us love,” Josh’s wife Kaitlyn Hines-Allen told Action News Jax. Josh puts it plainly, “A lot of people that you may not know in your daily life have had some type of cancer at a young age. You can always be there to support them, care for them, give them love. My foundation is just to show support.”

The campaign kicks off with a bell-ringing ceremony at Nemours, where other families will receive the same plush lions Wesley clutched during treatment. There are plans for player visits, fundraising challenges with local schools, and even designing superhero capes for kids in infusion chairs. Because Josh learned something in those hospital corridors: remission might be the finish line, but the race changes you. And no family should run it alone.