Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Brad Johnson has admitted that he paid people to alter the surface of the footballs before the 2003 Super Bowl. The Buccaneers beat the Raiders that year, with coach Jon Gruden at the helm.
Johnson was concerned he’d have a hard time getting a good grip on the ball, so he “paid some guys to get the balls right,” as the former quarterback told the Tampa Bay Times. There were, according to Johnson, a hundred footballs ready for action in that Super Bowl and the “guys” (unnamed as yet) deliberately scuffed the surfaces of each of football to make them less slippery. It cost him $7,500, he said.
