‘70% of the white guys,’ Former Cowboys lineman Crawford Ker says steroid use was ‘part of the game’ in 1980s NFL

Long before the NFL built year-round drug-testing programs and multimillion-dollar performance departments, the league operated inside a far murkier culture around strength, conditioning and competitive survival. Former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Crawford Ker pulled that reality back into public discussion this week while reflecting on steroid usage during football’s pre-testing era.

Speaking candidly about his own experiences during the 1980s, Ker described anabolic steroid use as deeply embedded within the sport’s culture at both the college and professional levels. His comments arrived as part of a broader conversation revisiting how normalized performance-enhancing drugs were across football during that era, particularly among offensive and defensive linemen, where size and strength often determined careers.

The NFL did not begin testing for anabolic steroids until 1987, and even then, enforcement mechanisms remained inconsistent during the program’s early years. Before that shift, steroid use across football, from high school weight rooms to college programs and professional locker rooms, was widely discussed but rarely confronted publicly.

During the 1970s and 1980s, football itself was changing physically. Linemen became dramatically larger, offseason weight training intensified and strength benchmarks escalated rapidly across the sport. Teams increasingly valued explosive size and power, particularly along the offensive and defensive fronts.

That environment created strong incentives for players seeking roster spots or career longevity. For many athletes, especially those fighting to survive physically demanding positions, performance enhancement became intertwined with professional advancement.

1. Ex-Cowboy Crawford Ker Reveals Shocking Steroid Usage Rates in 80s NFL

Rather than presenting steroid use as isolated behavior, Ker portrayed it as something many players openly understood to be part of the competitive landscape. He said, “I would say probably 70% of the white guys on the strength positions did it and maybe, um, 20% of the black athletes did it.” Ker continued, “And it’s, it’s in my book too. I mean, when I went to junior college, I would do a cycle, you know, for four weeks or something like that, then get off, and this. But, you know, it was a part of the game when I got there. And, you know, I set strength records at Florida, so I benched over 500 pounds.”

2. Inside the Obsessive 500-Pound Strength Culture That Fueled 80s Football

Ker entered football during a period when weight-room culture was becoming central to player development. Before reaching the NFL, he played junior college football and later transferred to the University of Florida, where he developed into a powerful offensive lineman. He eventually joined the Dallas Cowboys and played in the league during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His reference to benching more than 500 pounds reflected the escalating strength standards of the time. Across college and pro football, weightlifting numbers increasingly became status markers within programs, often tied directly to playing opportunities and scouting evaluations. The University of Florida, like many major football programs during that era, invested heavily in strength development as college football evolved into a more physically specialized sport. Nationally, strength coaches gained growing influence, and offseason conditioning programs became increasingly aggressive. Ker acknowledged his own steroid use directly rather than speaking only about the broader culture around him. That level of candor remains relatively uncommon among former NFL players discussing the period publicly. His racial observation, claiming different usage rates between white and Black players, also reflects how players themselves perceived locker-room trends at the time, though such estimates remain anecdotal and impossible to independently verify decades later. The NFL has never produced comprehensive historical data documenting steroid usage rates during that era, leaving much of the conversation reliant on firsthand accounts from former players, trainers and coaches.

3. How the NFL’s 1987 Drug Test Policy Changed Football Forever

By the mid-1980s, concern surrounding anabolic steroids had grown impossible for the NFL to fully ignore. Medical studies increasingly linked long-term steroid use to cardiovascular problems, hormonal disruption and psychological effects. At the same time, public attention around drug use in sports intensified nationally, fueled by Olympic scandals and congressional pressure surrounding performance-enhancing substances. In response, the NFL formally implemented steroid testing in 1987 under commissioner Pete Rozelle. The policy represented one of the league’s earliest major attempts to regulate performance-enhancing drugs systematically. Testing initially faced criticism from multiple directions. Some observers argued the system lacked sufficient rigor, while others believed the league’s disciplinary approach remained inconsistent. Players also raised concerns about privacy and enforcement standards. Still, the policy marked a turning point in how the NFL publicly approached performance enhancement. Over time, testing expanded, penalties increased and league messaging shifted toward emphasizing player health and competitive integrity. Modern NFL drug policies now include year-round testing, biological monitoring and collectively bargained disciplinary procedures negotiated with the NFL Players Association. The league’s contemporary performance ecosystem also differs dramatically from the environment Ker described. Today’s players have access to advanced nutrition staffs, recovery technology, sports science departments and legal supplementation programs that barely existed during the 1980s. That evolution has not eliminated PED concerns entirely, but it has transformed how performance development is structured across professional football.

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