Germaine Pratt’s New Bengals Deal Is Business As Usual For A Mother’s Son

Two weeks after the Bengals took Pratt in the 2019 third round out of North Carolina State, he kept Shemeka in Carolina and moved her out of High Point to be near him in Charlotte. A few weeks after that during spring ball, she told Bengals.com, “He’s one of these people who is hungry. Hungry for success.”

Nearly four years and about $21 million later, Bettcher is still talking about Pratt’s hunger.

“He’s aware what’s going on on the field when it’s happening. He’s aware in the meeting room. He’s aware in his preparation,” Bettcher says. “He’s aware of where he’s at as a player and what he can grow at. I think that’s what keeps guys hungry. That’s what keeps guys going is when they’re aware and love the game. Man, those are potent combinations.”

Pratt keeps going, so it’s no coincidence Bland keeps going to her job as a home health aide. It’s not as hectic and as long, she says, as those days she worked at Waffle House and as a cleaner for commercial buildings when she wasn’t working home health. Those were the days she was up at 6 in the morning hoped to be back home by 10 at night.

Now, maybe she works six hours at a time and her middle son just signed a contract worth a string of Waffle Houses.

“He has told me numerous times I really don’t have to do it. But I guess I’m sort of immune to it,” Bland says. “I just have two clients. One is an elderly lady who still gets around pretty well and so we’re out and about all the time. My other client is in the afternoon and I just love him. A 10-year-old disabled little boy. I like doing what I do. It’s really my choice.”

Pratt once told a Carolina TV station that he grew up “in poverty, in the hood.” When she was 15, Bland’s father was killed. On Tuesday, after signing on to a new chapter, Pratt acknowledged the earlier ones had their share of adversity. Yet, they kept going to work and Shemeka Bland can still recite the goals her seventh grade son wrote down when she sent him to Ferndale Middle School.

“Get his high school…