Pennsylvania's Game
Passionate fans, a hardworking culture, and the sport’s history have made football an indelible part of the state’s identity.
Sunday’s intoxicating pairing of Pennsylvania’s two division-leading NFL teams, the 10-3 Steelers and 11-2 Eagles, is more than a matchup of two of the league’s best teams and most ardent fan bases. It’s also a reminder of football’s historic grip on this commonwealth.
There are other football-mad states — think Ohio, Alabama, and especially Texas — but for a century or so none could match Pennsylvania’s gridiron legacy, its roster of native superstars, the depth of its high school talent, the passion of its supporters. Football’s gritty, rough-and-tumble nature meshed perfectly with the gritty, rough-and-tumble populace of a state built atop the muscular foundation of coal, steel, and railroads.
“I really think football’s hardscrabble nature has always appealed to the hardscrabbled people in this state, the steelworkers, the coal miners,” said Ray Didinger, an Eagles historian and retired sportswriter and NFL Films producer. “And all those people that loved it passed that on to their children.”
Indeed, Pennsylvania’s links to football are as enduring as the steel girders its smoky mills once churned out. Only Texas has produced more Pro Football Hall of Famers than this state’s 34. Among colleges, only Alabama and Tennessee have more Hall of Famers than Pittsburgh’s 18. Only California has more Super Bowl trophies than the combined seven won by the Steelers (six) and Eagles (one). The first professional game was played in Latrobe in 1895. NFL Films debuted here in 1960, and from 1946 through 1959, the NFL itself was headquartered in Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd.
In recent decades other states, mostly in the South, have surpassed Pennsylvania as breeding grounds for college and professional talent, and high schools and colleges elsewhere now outshine this state’s. But you still won’t find more rabid NFL fans anywhere.
“If you take Green Bay out of it, there isn’t any other place where the fans are so passionate as Philadelphia,” said Didinger. “Philadelphia is unique in that regard. The only place that comes close is Pittsburgh. The biggest difference in those two cities, I think, is that Steelers fans tend to be a little more optimistic, which is understandable since they’ve won six Super Bowls.”
Making history
Pennsylvania-flavored milestones are sprinkled throughout football’s 150-year history, which in this state began in 1874 when upperclassmen at Penn introduced the rugby-spinoff sport to Quakers freshmen as a part of a hazing ritual. But perhaps the best example of the state’s dominant influence came during the 1980s.
In January 1980, the Steelers won their fourth Super Bowl in six years.
In 1981, Dick Vermeil’s Eagles made their first Super Bowl appearance.
In 1982, Penn State captured the collegiate national title.
After the 1983 season, USA Today selected Berwick as the nation’s No. 1 high school team.
In 1984, Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, a Pittsburgher, was the NFL’s MVP and Rookie of the Year. That year’s Defensive Rookie of the Year was tackle Bill Maas of Newtown Square, its Coach of the Year Chuck Knox of Sewickley.
In 1985, Beaver Falls’ Joe Namath was inducted into Pro Football’s Hall of Fame.
In 1986, Penn State won another national title.
In 1987, USA Today deemed Pittsburgh’s North Hills as high school football’s national champion.
In 1988, three of the four Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees were Pennsylvanians — Mike Ditka, Fred Biletnikoff, and Jack Ham.
In 1989, Joe Montana, the Niners quarterback from New Eagle, was the NFL’s regular-season and Super Bowl MVP.
For a long time, “Pennsylvania player” implied certain characteristics. Linemen like “Concrete Charlie” Bednarik and “Iron Mike” Ditka were fearsome and unbreakable. Quarterbacks like Johnny Unitas and Montana were heady and unflappable. Running backs like Lenny Moore and Leroy Kelly were shifty and strong.
“The number of great players Pennsylvania turned out over the years was unmatched,” said Upton Bell, whose father, Bert, played a part in much of that story. Before Bell became the NFL’s second commissioner in 1941, he was a star quarterback at Penn, later coached there, and owned the Eagles and Steelers as well as the wartime NFL hybrid Steagles.
“Look at all the Western Pennsylvania quarterbacks — Johnny Unitas, Joe Namath, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly,” said Bell, a former NFL executive himself who at 87 is retired in Boston. “Or the running backs from the eastern part of the state — Lenny Moore, Eddie George, John Cappelletti. Or all the tough linemen from the coal regions and steel towns.”
But since the 1980s, changes in economics, demographics and football strategy have diminished Pennsylvania’s standing in the football world. And maybe the best place to examine that decline is the NFL draft, ironically another Pennsylvania football first, devised by Bert Bell in 1936.
According to the website PaFBHistory.com, from 1938 through 1987 the number of Pennsylvanians selected in the draft never dipped below double digits. In 12 drafts between 1942 and 1971, more than 30 Pennsylvanians were chosen and only twice was that number under 20.
The pinnacle occurred in 1957 when 39 players from the state were picked. While there were 360 players selected in that ‘57 draft and only 257 in 2024’s, the falloff in Pennsylvania-drafted talent is nonetheless notable. Pennsylvania produced 10.9% of the picks in ‘57, only 2.3% this year. Only three times since 2000 have NFL teams chosen 10 or more Pennsylvanians. The average has been 7.6.
“There’s definitely been a redistribution of talent, especially to the Southern states that have experienced big population booms,” said Patrick McDermott, PaFBHistory.com’s founder. “But I think the best players in Pennsylvania compare favorably with the best players elsewhere. We just don’t go as deep as we used to. Maybe there used to be two dozen blue-chip players in the state. Now there might be 10 or 12.”
Rise of the South
Draft analysis bears that out.
While it’s true that in the last six years the total of Pennsylvania draftees has dipped, seven Pennsylvanians have gone in the first rounds, four in the top five — Marvin Harrison Jr. (No. 4 in 2024), Kyle Pitts (No. 4 in 2021), Saquon Barkley (No. 2 in 2018), and Mike McGlinchey (No. 3 in 2018).
Experts point to several reasons for the decline:
Football’s explosion in the South and Southwest.
Parental concerns about long-term health and safety issues.
Economic factors that often make football too expensive to play and sponsor, especially in economically challenged states like Pennsylvania.
The inability of most schools to put together competitive schedules.
The shift to speed and finesse and away from the power and size that were hallmarks of so many Pennsylvania players.
Weather that limits practices.
Maybe most significantly, the precipitous decline in Pennsylvania’s player pool.
In 1971-72, according to Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association figures, there were 72,326 high schoolers playing football in the state. By the 2022-23 season, that number had shrunk by two-thirds, to 24,975.
By way of comparison, Alabama, with a population of 5.1 million, had 50% more high schoolers playing football in the 2022-23 season than Pennsylvania with its 12.9 million people.
The biggest difference in those two cities, I think, is that Steelers fans tend to be a little more optimistic, which is understandable since they’ve won six Super Bowls.
“The advantage that a lot of these other states have over Pennsylvania is that they have more things like spring football programs and seven-on-seven camps,” said Adam Friedman, national recruiting analyst for Rivals.com. “Some of the high-end programs in the state will play a national schedule. But most schools can’t. And I think that playing against the highest level of competition is an important factor in developing five-star recruits. It takes resources to develop talent, and other states have better resources.
“But all that said, those schools in Pennsylvania where the infrastructure has matured, places like St. Joseph’s Prep, Imhotep Charter, and Pittsburgh’s Central Catholic, are still able to develop high-end talent.”
Where are the quarterbacks?
Sunday’s Eastern Pa.-vs.-Western Pa. matchup at Lincoln Financial Field brings to mind another change in Pennsylvania football. While the eastern half of the state continues to produce running backs like Barkley and D’Andre Swift, the legendary quarterback pipeline in the west has been clogged.
“There really hasn’t been a five-star QB from Western Pa. in a long time, probably not since Terrell Pryor, and he really never lived up to expectations,” Friedman said.
Maybe that’s a sign that football in Western Pennsylvania is returning to the grind-it-out style that Bert Bell noticed back in the 1930s.
“My father always thought that the Steelers played a brand of football that more represented the blue-collar regions of Pennsylvania,” Upton Bell said. “They played grind-it-out football while the Eagles teams he owned played a more wide-open style of offense.”