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President Donald Trump pardons five former NFL players, including three SEC alums

by: Alex Byington02/13/26_AlexByington

U.S. President Donald Trump formally pardoned five former NFL players, including one posthumously, for convictions involving everything from perjury to drug trafficking on Thursday. White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson announced the president has granted clemency to former players Travis Henry, Joe Klecko, Jamal Lewis, Nate Newton and the late Billy Cannon in a social media post Thursday night.

“Today, the President granted pardons to five former NFL players — Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, and the late great Dr. Billy Cannon,” Johnson wrote on X/Twitter on Thursday night. “As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation.”

Henry, a former running back with the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans, pled guilty in 2009 to conspiracy to traffic cocaine for financing a drug ring that moved the coke between Colorado and Montana. Henry served two of a three-year prison sentence. Lewis, a former running back with the Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns, was sentenced to four months in federal prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to using a cell phone to set up a drug deal involving cocaine not long after he was a Top 5 pick in the 2000 NFL Draft. Both Henry and Lewis are Tennessee alums.

Cannon, who passed away in 2018, served 2 1/2 years of a five-year sentence in the mid-1980s for participating in a counterfeiting ring that involved printing $6 million in 100-dollar bills after falling on hard financial times. Cannon, who was released in 1986 and turned his life around to start a dental practice inside Louisiana State Penitentiary, famously won the 1959 Heisman Trophy at LSU and starred for the Houston Oilers and Oakland Raiders in the 1960s.

Newton, a former offensive lineman with the Dallas Cowboys between 1986-98, pled guilty to a drug trafficking charge in 2002 after two traffic stops in 2001 in which he was found in possession of a combined 388 pounds of marijuana in Louisiana and Texas. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison but turned his life around after being released in opened a dental practice inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Johnson also announced Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones personally delivered the news to Newton: “Special thanks to Jerry Jones for personally sharing the news with Nate Newton. I’m holding Nate’s pardon in my hands today — what a blessed day.”

Klecko, a former star defensive tackle with the New York Jets between 1977-87, was sentenced to three months in prison in 1993 after pleading guilty to perjury for lying to a federal grand jury investigating insurance fraud. Klecko was later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2023.