On Thursday, President Donald Trump pardoned five former professional football players. The players included Joe Klecko, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, the late Billy Cannon, and Dallas Cowboys legend Nate Newton. And when it came to Newton, the news didn’t travel through a press release or a third party. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones personally delivered it to him. White House pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson announced on ‘X,’ writing:

“As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation. 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. Grateful to @POTUS for his continued commitment to second chances. Mercy changes lives.”

And it’s not hard to understand why Jerry would want to be the one to make that call. Newton spent more than a decade anchoring the Cowboys’ offensive line. In the process, he was a central piece of the franchise’s 1990s dynasty under Jimmy Johnson. He helped Dallas win three Super Bowls and built a résumé that included six Pro Bowl selections.

He won five straight Pro Bowls from 1992 through 1996, and then again in 1998, his final season in Dallas before joining the Carolina Panthers in 1999. However, his career with the Cowboys came with multiple layers. During and shortly after his playing career, he was arrested multiple times on drug-related charges, including possession of mari***na with intent to distribute, especially in the 1990s.

In one of the most serious incidents, authorities discovered $10,000 in his pickup truck and 175 pounds of mari***na in a separate vehicle driven by another man. Newton ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal drug trafficking charge. Those arrests cast a long shadow, complicating how parts of his legacy were remembered.

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So this pardon isn’t just a headline. It’s a reframing of a chapter that had long followed him. For Newton, the moment ties together the heights of a decorated NFL career and the consequences that came after it. And for Trump, the decision places the Cowboys legend alongside four other former NFL players in what the White House framed as an act centered on second chances.

Four other former NFL players received pardons from Donald Trump

Besides Nate Newton, Donald Trump also pardoned Joe Klecko, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, and the late Billy Cannon. Each player has a résumé that once defined Sundays, and a legal chapter that complicated it later. Klecko, a cornerstone of the New York Jets’ famed “New York Sack Exchange” defensive line, was a four-time Pro Bowler and is a Pro Football Hall of Famer.

But decades earlier, in 1993, he was convicted and sentenced to three months in prison on charges related to bankruptcy fraud tied to a business venture after his playing career.

Lewis’ arc is equally layered. The former Baltimore Ravens and Cleveland Browns running back played for nine seasons in the league. In the process, he earned one All-Pro nod and was part of the Ravens’ dominant Super Bowl-winning team in 2000. Yet in 2005, he pleaded guilty to using a cell phone to facilitate a drug transaction connected to a broader federal investigation. He served prison time during the 2007 offseason and then returned to the league.

Henry, who also suited up for the Broncos, rushed for over 1,000 yards in three separate seasons. Still, in 2009, he was sentenced to three years in federal prison on coc***e trafficking charges after authorities linked him to financing and distributing large quantities of the drug.

Cannon’s case dates back even further. The 1959 Heisman Trophy winner at LSU later pleaded guilty in 1983 for his role in a large-scale counterfeiting operation involving millions of dollars in fake currency. He served three years in federal prison before eventually becoming a dentist. Cannon, who passed away in 2018 at age 80, was still posthumously included in Trump’s list of pardons.

In each case, the pattern is hard to ignore: decorated careers, serious legal consequences, and now, a formal act of clemency. The pardons don’t erase the past, but they do officially close the legal chapter on it.