Six former National Football League players received pardons from U.S. president Donald Trump on Friday.
The announcement was made Alice Marie Johnson, the administration’s “pardons czar.”
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.
As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation.
Special thanks… pic.twitter.com/Y4FC5lQwGE
— Alice Marie Johnson (@AliceMarieFree) February 13, 2026
“As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again,” Johnson wrote on social media. “So is our nation.”
Those pardoned were the late Billy Cannon, running backs Travis Henry and Jamal Lewis, guard Nate Newton and Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive tackle Joe Klecko.
A halfback, Cannon died in 2018 at the age of 80. A Heisman Trophy winner and College Football Hall of Famer, Cannon had an 11-year pro career with the Houston Oilers, Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs, winning three AFL Championships. Cannon, who became a dentist, was sentenced to five years for counterfeiting in 1983 and served nearly three years in federal prison.
Henry, 47, won a National Championship with Tennessee in 1998 and was a second-round pick by the Buffalo Bills in 2001. He would spend seven seasons in the league with the Bills, Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos, named to a Pro Bowl in 2002. In 2009, he was sentenced to five years in prison for financing a cocaine trafficking operation and served three years.
Lewis, 46, was on the same Volunteers team as Henry that won the National Championship. He was taken with the fifth overall selection of the 2000 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Ravens. He won Super Bowl XXXV with the team in 2001 and led the league in rushing in 2003 as part of a 10-year career that also included time with the Cleveland Browns. Lewis was sentenced to five months in prison in 2005 for conspiring to possess cocaine with the intent of distribution.
A two-time All-Pro, the 64-year-old Newton won three Super Bowls as a member of the Dallas Cowboys in the ealry 1990s. In 2002, Newton was sentenced to 30 months for drug trafficking.
Klecko, 73, was a member of the New York Jets’ vaunted “New York Sack Exchange” along with Marty Lyons, Abdul Salaam and Mark Gastineau. He was named the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 1981, leading the league in sacks with 20.5. He was inducted into Canton in 2023. In 1993, the Temple product was sentenced to three months in prison for perjury as part of an insurance fraud case.