Billy Cannon

WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS

Cannon is the only one of the five former players pardoned posthumously: the Associated Press account carried by NPR reports that he died in 2018, years before the February 12, 2026 grant. The Justice Department's clemency list enters him as Dr. Billy A. Cannon and gives his sentence as 60 months' imprisonment and a $10,000 fine, recording the offense only as conspiracy; unlike the other four rows for former players in the same table, his row carries no sentencing date. The AP reports that the former Houston Oilers, Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs player admitted to counterfeiting in the mid-1980s after a series of bad investments and debts left him broke, and that he was a two-time All-Pro and a two-time Pro Bowler who won the 1959 Heisman Trophy at Louisiana State University. The parent entry records that The Hill dates the counterfeiting case to 1983. The Ledger does not publish a court district for Cannon: the Justice Department's district column for his row reads “District of Montana,” the same district the list gives for Travis Henry in the same table, no other cited source names a court for him, and that listing has not been verified against the pardon warrant. No donation, lobbying payment or other payment connected to this pardon appears in the entry or its sources.