How the NFL Cheats: Foreign Substances

September 9, 2016   ·   Dan Pompei   ·   Jump to comments

Whether you call it breaking the rules, bending the rules or just getting creative with the rules, cheating has always been a part of the NFL and always will be. This is Part 1 in a Bleacher Report series on how NFL players and teams seek out some advantage, any advantage, over their competition.
   
It was October 1977, and Lester Hayes was a rookie defensive back out of Texas A&M playing in the first game of his NFL career for the Oakland Raiders. 
He was approached on the sidelines by the team's star wide receiver. Fred Biletnikoff wiped something off his ankle and smeared it on Hayes' fingers.
Hayes' world changed in that moment.
"Clear stickum, from a can," Hayes remembers. "This stuff was stupendous. It was a National Football League secret. Top-secret stuff."
In his first three seasons as a starter, Hayes would go on to intercept 24 passes—four more than the next-closest players over that time span.
And the adhesiv...

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