Life in the NFL moves fast. 

As quickly as you are on a team you can be off of it.

The Bills cut tight end Mik'Quan Deane the day after mandatory minicamp ended. It is a move most fans likely have already forgotten about.

But Deane's story is reason not to.

"Growing up I never noticed anything," Deane said. "I thought we were like a regular family."

Mik'Quan Deane's childhood in Tulsa was anything but. It began when he was five and his father was the first to head off to prison.

"He decided to sell marijuana because with his upbringing, going to juvenile and stuff like that, he felt like that was his only option," Deane said.

Not long after, his mother began shoplifting to try and make ends meet, with Mik'Quan and his two brothers by her side.

"I think we went into Gap or somewhere and we would look out for her," he recalls. "Make sure that no one tried to catch her... If she's behind us, we'd try to make sure no one's looking at her. Trying to point the other way and distract people."

But eventually the look out didn't work.

"I think someone noticed that we were trying to steal and they called security," Deane remembered. "When security started coming we started running out of the door. And it was just crazy just to be running. It's crazy to think about, wow, we were running from the security."

Mik'Quan's mom was sent to prison as well. With both their parents behind bars, the three boys were sent to live with their uncle, until the next encounter with the law.

"The cops broke into my uncle's house when we were sleeping in our bunk beds," Deane said. "Only thing I remember was being in my room and seeing flashlights in my face. I'm like, is this a game? I don't even know. I see guys with suits and stuff and they're just like, hey, you've got to come with us."

Off Mik'Quan and his two brothers went to foster care.

"When we got there we didn't have clothes of our own," he said. "You try and find shoes and they have a shoe bin with your size in it. It's different shoes in it... There were like 15, 12 people living in that house and it's probably like 2 or 3 bedrooms. So they had multiple beds in the house. Like how is this even right? We're sharing beds with some random kids I've never met in my life."

The stay was less than a year, when Mik'Quan and his brothers were reunited with their mother, who finished serving a short sentence. As she began to get her life in order, Mik'Quan's brothers began turning theirs towards gangs. It's a path that led Deane down a different road upon high school, choosing to live with friends over family.

"I felt like I would rather be somewhere else just because I'd seen the way my brothers went and I kind of wanted a change of pace," Deane said. "It was kind of weird. I felt like I wanted to see what it was like being with a white family. I've seen so much bad that all I wanted was just a change of life."

Part of the change became football, but not until Mik'Quan's junior year of high school, but quickly taking off as a senior.

"I think it was my 2nd or 3rd game playing running back and I think I rushed for like 429 yards with six touchdowns," he recalls. "And I just realized that, wow, I could probably be really good at football if I actually try and work on my craft."

However, the late start paired with academic issues pushed Deane to Northeastern Oklahoma A-and-M junior college, where he spent three seasons, transitioning to tight end.

"The thing about me is I have a lot of faith and I'm a big patience guy," Deane said. "So when I got to junior college I'm like obviously I'm new to this position and I'm very athletic, sky's the limit. So I've always just had a positive mindset my whole life."

The positivity pushed Mik'Quan to Western Kentucky for two seasons. As his football career moved forward, so too did his relationship with his parents. Both out of prison. Both working. Both on the road of redemption from a troubled-and-checkered past.

"I would just ask those people 'What would you do if you grew up not knowing too much and not having the right outlets and having the right resources to impact you?" Deane said. "If you were in their shoes how would you respond and act to those challenges in life? Because honestly I don't know what I would have done... I feel like my parents did what they could. I've never held anything against them and I love them to death, honestly."

Mik'Quan's once again looking to beat the odds as an undrafted player already cut by two NFL teams in a month. 

But that's nothing compared to what Deane's already overcome.

"I feel like life can throw whatever at me and I'm going to bounce off of it because going through those things when I was younger just made me so tough," Deane said. "It always keeps me fueled and where I was at and promising myself that I'll never have my family, any of my family be like that. I promise to make sure everyone is set and I'm just going to change the trajectory of my whole family."

Which has been only going up for Mik'Quan Deane.