INDIANAPOLIS -- Devon Still believes some of the trials he has endured this past year have prepared him well for these next couple of days of career uncertainty.

Comparatively speaking, the day and a half he will spend waiting to hear if he has made the Cincinnati Bengals' roster will be easy. After all, in the past 15 months, the 26-year-old defensive tackle has been through much more than most men his age.

"If I didn't go through what I went through last year," Still said Thursday night, citing the strength he needed while watching his 5-year-old daughter Leah fight Stage 4 neuroblastoma, "I'd have a tough time.

"I've had to sit and wait through worse stuff than this."

Waiting for a phone call from an NFL head coach doesn’t register the same roller coaster of emotions for a parent who simultaneously fears, hopes for and dreads news from their child's doctor. Still has awaited plenty of the latter kind of calls in the past year.

That's why it was easy for him to emphatically say after the Bengals' 9-6 win against the Colts in Thursday's preseason finale that he's confident he did everything he could to make Cincinnati's roster. Moments after a game in which he recorded a tackle and had a sack wiped away by a penalty, he pushed the proverbial ball into the Bengals' coaches' court. He said it's now on them to determine whether he did enough to stick with the team that made him a second-round pick in 2012.

"I went out there and played. The coaches are going to have to evaluate things and see what the best fits for this team are," Still said. "You've just got to let things take its course."

The Bengals ended the preseason with seven defensive tackles, and likely will keep four on their 53-man roster. Aware his days in Bengals stripes might be numbered, Still added: "Hopefully the coaches like what I've done and I make the ballclub. If not, hopefully I've got a chance to make it somewhere else."

Said coach Marvin Lewis: "All in all, he’s battling."

The Bengals signed Still to their practice squad last year, one day after cutting him to trim the roster to its 53-man regular-season limit. The move ensured he still would have health insurance to pay for Leah's skyrocketing medical bills.

Cincinnati is back at that start-of-the-season round of roster cuts. Like they did before last year’s opener, the Bengals must cut their roster down this year by 4 p.m. ET Saturday. Although he was also on their roster bubble late last preseason, Still considers his current experience to be different from what was happening in 2014.

"Last year I kind of knew what was going to happen because I wasn't all the way into football [mentally]," Still said. "This year, I was able to focus more, I was able to go out there and play. It's up in the air about what's going to happen right now."

Still appeared in all four Bengals preseason games. He had four tackles.