When Demario Davis speaks, people listen, and that's true even when he declines to talk football entirely in his post-game press conference.
He walked up to the podium on Sunday afternoon after his Saints notched a thrilling win over the Titans, and made his intentions clear: "I’ve got a lot to say, so y’all buckle up."
Davis, who often has a sermon and clear message in mind whenever he speaks to the media, had exactly that on Sunday as he shared a remarkable story about his 4-year-old daughter, who has battled a host of medical issues, and the of faith in his life.
Trying to summarize Davis' words would feel like a disservice, so here is Davis' speech in its entirety, transcribed below.
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"Man, we play this game on Sunday, and it’s really the Lord’s day and a day we should be worshipping the lord, a lot of times players are getting worshipped and we get to go on this ball field. So, since so many of us didn’t get to go to church today, I have a word that I want to share. I know this is a little untraditional, so like I said, buckle up.
"Revelations 3:20 says, ‘See I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him and eat with him, and he with me.’
“I want to tell you all about a knock that I heard this week. A lot people don’t know this, but on Friday my daughter — she’s 4 years old — she had a third epilepsy seizure attack. This is my same daughter who survived retinal blastoma. She’s been totally cleared of that. But she had her third seizure and it’d been almost 2 years. She was about a month away if she would’ve had no seizures for 1 more month, she would’ve been off the medicine. But now we have to start that clock all the way over.
“It was on Friday, there was a bunch of kids over the house and she was playing. I noticed something was off and I told her mom I thought she was having a seizure. Mom was pretty good, she saw it — my wife — and we took her in a room, we didn’t want to cause a scene and she started to foam at the mouth. It was her worst seizure. For 30 minutes she seized. She wouldn’t come and we had to call the paramedics. They came ... they got her in. My wife got in with the paramedics with her. I got behind them driving. You could imagine all the thoughts that’s racing through your mind, the last sight you see of your daughter is she’s totally out of it. Got to the hospital and my wife told me that my daughter stoppd breathing in the car twice. So I’m, of course, praying. We get to the hospital, they give her a bunch of medicine, the seizure stops, she’s laying there. And at this point as she’s seized for 30 minutes, you start to fear there could be development issues that could mess with her brain. She stopped breathing, there was no oxygen going to her brain. You start to think about will her speech be slurred, anything — or worse.
“So we prayed and we prayed and she had medicine and my wife and I had to stay overnight at the hospital and in the middle of the night, probably about 3 o’clock, I heard a knock. And the knock, the knock was my daughter. I had prayed for her. I said, ‘God, let this just be an attack from the enemy that’s just trying to be a distraction, and let him have overplayed his hand, and my daughter come back stronger than before.’
“When I heard my daughter talk in the middle of the night, and my daughter she doesn’t have any development issues, praise God. She doesn’t have any slurred speech, prior to this. She woke up talking clearer than she was talking before. Now, anyone who deals with epilepsy knows that it takes a few days for them to come back. They usually can get back to normal, wherever they were, but it takes a couple days. They’re groggy. It’s a lot, because with their body it’s like the TV is just static in their brain. She was talking clearer than before. It was 3 o’clock when we heard her talking. We let her talk for about 20 minutes. Then we said, ‘hey baby, it’s night time. Let’s go back to sleep.’ I just prayed. I started saying praise God. Praise God.
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“The next morning when she got up, my daughter was so sharp. She was able to talk to me and her mom. I mean, clear conversation. She’s sharp for a 4-year-old. No stuttering, all her words clear. And my daughter, like I said, my daughter was already sharp. She was sharper than before. And if any of you were able to have a conversation with my daughter, you wouldn’t know anything had ever happened.
“So we had a birthday party for my 7-year-old daughter the day she got released from the hospital. She was able to come back home and it was as if nothing has happened. She was playing with the kids the day before and she had the worst seizure that she had ever had. And the next day she’s back out there playing with the kids. Now, of course we can’t let her get overstimulated. We have to keep bringing her in, have to keep cooling her down, can’t let her do too much just because of protocol. But when I tell you I got a chance to hear a knock from God.
“And what I want to share is, we get to play this game and it’s great. And there’s so many amazing things that happened in today’s game, and everybody wants to hear about it. But when we leave this game, we go back to being regular people, and regular people are living life, and people are waiting for a knock. And the word says who Jesus, he’s knocking at the door. All you’ve got to do is get up. And so on the way, I’m nervous, but I’m praying, and I’m trusting, and I’m believing. And I’m not asking for my daughter to make it through, I’m asking that she’s better than before, and God gave me just what I asked for, plus some. I was blown away. And at that point I knew, well, the game was already — the game is going to take care of itself.
“My knock had already been answered, and I just want people to know, if you’ve got stuff going on in your life, lay it before the Lord. Lay it before the Lord and trust, and be expecting of a knock, because the word says what you have to do is you have to get up and open the door. He’s not going to open the door for you, he’s gonna knock. But you have to be listening and waiting for the knock. And when you see it you have to get up and open the door, and you’re blessing is going to be there.
“Now, I’m going to be here to talk about football next week. I wish y’all well. Happy Sunday, and praise God."