Los Angeles Rams defensive end Aaron Donald looks on from the bench before an NFL football game against the New York Giants in Inglewood, Calif., Monday, Sept. 21, 2026.
Back in 2012, when Rob Gronkowski and Darrelle Revis were well on their way to Hall of Fame careers, Western Pennsylvania boasted 31 players in the NFL.
Two years prior, Woodland Hills alone had six players in the league, a group headlined by Gronkowski, Jason Taylor and Steve Breaston. That was the most of any high school in the country.
But over the past 14 years, there has been a considerable dip in the number of National Football League players from the WPIAL and City League.
In 2025, for the first time in 32 years, no local players were selected in the NFL Draft. Eleven WPIAL players were on active rosters at the start of the 2025 season. This year, there were again just 11 players from the WPIAL and none from the City League on active rosters when the NFL kicked off Week 1.
Steelers wide receiver Germie Bernard carries as he’s defended by Colts safety Camryn Bynum during the second half of an NFL football game at Acrisure Stadium, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, in Pittsburgh.
“It’s definitely surprising, with the talent the WPIAL produces every single year,” said Khaleke Hudson, a former McKeesport standout and 2020 NFL Draft pick.
The Post-Gazette spoke with three current and former WPIAL head coaches, multiple retired NFL players from the area and an individual involved in college scouting to try to find out why Western Pennsylvania has seen such a steep decline in what used to be one of Pittsburgh’s notable exports — professional football players.
Several offered theories, and some simply shrugged. Others pointed to signs that suggest we will see more local players in the NFL soon.
Less participation?
The first area to examine is participation.
“For us over at Moon, the numbers are way down,” said Mike McMahon, the Tigers’ new offensive coordinator who played five years in the NFL. “They lost a lot of guys last year, but we’re very thin.”
There was a dip after the COVID-19 pandemic — and certain states have stagnated since — but survey data from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) tells a different story in Pennsylvania.
In 2012, there were 586 schools in the state totaling 26,370 players participating in football.
Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth scores a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Colts at Acrisure Stadium, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, in Pittsburgh.
In ’24-25, despite the number of schools dropping to 554, participation actually grew to 27,700.
Last year featured another uptick, as the NFHS recorded 28,119 players here in Pennsylvania.
Still, West Allegheny coach Bob Palko said a possible explanation for the trend of fewer NFL exports is specialization — youth athletes participating in year-round training for one sport.
“I think there are less kids playing multiple sports,” Palko said. “I think more kids today are focusing on playing baseball all year round or playing basketball all year round.”
“That takes some of the players away,” added George Novak, the legendary former Woodland Hills coach who retired after the 2016 season.
Novak was Woodland Hills’ first coach when the school opened in 1987. He won six WPIAL championships while sending 14 players to the NFL — the third most in district history behind Central Catholic (15) and McKeesport (16).
This season, for the first time in many years, there are no Woodland Hills players in the league.
Though Novak said specialization is a factor, he believes there’s an element more unique to Pittsburgh.
Amid the deindustrialization of the 1980s, 75% of the city’s steel-making capacity was shuttered by the end of the decade. The collapse of steel and the transition from a manufacturing hub to one now dominated by technology, Novak believes, had downstream effects tying into football.
“My grandparents and my parents worked in the mills, and they had that toughness to them,” Novak said. “Football was important — it was a way to get out. Nowadays it’s more of a high-tech community around Pittsburgh.”
‘A lot of distractions’
Justin King was a star cornerback and running back at Gateway in the early 2000s, earning acclaim as one of the most prized recruits in the country.
He went on to be a two-time All-Conference pick at Penn State before dazzling NFL scouts with a 4.31-second 40-yard dash at the 2008 NFL scouting combine. He spent five seasons in the league, including a stint with the Steelers.
These days, King is deep in the weeds with player development.
He joined Penn State as recruiting coordinator in 2017 and two years later was hired by the XFL to oversee football operations and college personnel. Now, King heads L.I.G. Sports Group, a Pittsburgh-based firm centered on preparing athletes for the business side of college sports and beyond.
When asked about the WPIAL-to-NFL trend, he emphasized there’s “a lot of distractions nowadays.”
“The development process has moved away from pure development. Now, we’re talking about exposure,” King said. “We’re talking about recruiting and media companies that everyone’s trying to get in front of.”
In the WPIAL in particular, he believes there’s harm in the “overexposure” of athletes via social media.
“Exposure is the critical point because before it was exposing the elite [players] — the top of the top,” King said. “ ... Now, everybody’s talking about everybody and everybody’s kind of comparing everybody.”
McMahon, the former North Allegheny star who in 2001 became the first Rutgers quarterback ever selected in the NFL Draft, echoed that sentiment.
“A lot of these kids think they’re competing against guys on their team or maybe guys in the WPIAL,” McMahon said. “You’re competing against every kid in the country.”
On the surface, it doesn’t seem the WPIAL and City League are struggling from a recruiting standpoint.
Four local players in the 2027 senior class are rated as four-star prospects by 247Sports and signed to major power-conference programs. They are McKeesport’s Kemon Spell, Pine-Richland’s Khalil Taylor and Central Catholic’s James Halter and Jimmy Kalis. Spell looks like the area’s most promising recruit in years.
“Sometimes it runs in cycles,” Palko said. “I know there are still really good football players from around here.”
Still, King said, there are underlying factors that, while not present in recruiting rankings, might be influencing the area’s output into the NFL.
He believes the proliferation of agents — in correlation with the current state of name, image and likeness (NIL) and revenue sharing in NCAA football — has “hijacked a lot of things.”
“That’s just coming closer and closer to the development and youth sports phase,” King said. “ ... There’s very few objective sources in that space.”
And King said that with athletes potentially receiving misleading information, they might be chasing the wrong college opportunities, which could stunt their development and ability to extend their football careers.
‘Still a hotbed’
Thomas Jefferson coach Bill Cherpak encouraged we keep things in perspective here.
“To have 11,” he said, “if you went around to other districts in Pennsylvania and all over the country, that’s probably a good number.”
Pennsylvania as a whole has 48 players on NFL rosters — seven alone coming from Philadelphia power St. Joseph’s Prep. That is the 10th most of any state in the country.
This spring, Mt. Lebanon graduate Eli Heidenreich was drafted by the Steelers with much local fanfare. San Francisco 49ers rookie linebacker Jaden Dugger, a Penn Hills product, also entered the league. Defensive lineman Aaron Donald, the former Penn Hills and Pitt star, came out of retirement.
The Steelers have three former WPIAL players in Heidenreich, Jaquan Brisker (Gateway) and Christian Kuntz (Chartiers Valley). They also traded Joey Porter Jr. (North Allegheny) to the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 1.
Mike Rittelmann, a former Hopewell and Waynesburg University defensive end, is the director of scouting and player personnel for the College Gridiron Showcase, an All-Star event for draft prospects across all levels of college football.
Rittelmann, who also assists in scouting for the Canadian Football League’s Calgary Stampeders, said the WPIAL is “still a hotbed.”
“You can never guess what’s going to happen with the draft cycles each year, and it’s going to be interesting,” Rittelmann said. “But at the end of the day, I think the talent is still here.”
As for Hudson, who is no longer playing in the NFL and is helping out on the staff at McKeesport, he is seeing star power every day in Spell and Tigers wide receiver Javien Robinson, a South Carolina recruit.
“But as far as the whole WPIAL, I’m not sure. I can’t pinpoint why,” Hudson said. “Maybe we’re just going through a drop and it is what it is. I think things can change soon and pick back up. There’s good energy in Pittsburgh.”
Post-Gazette freelancer Mike White contributed to this article.
First Published: October 13, 2026, 1:00 a.m.