Maybe they’re just buttering us up before the NFL draft, but NFL Films stands by its contention that, as the title of a new documentary puts it, Pittsburgh is “The Football Town.”
“This isn’t just any football town,” narrator Pat McAfee, the Plum native, sports commentator and former NFL punter, says in the film. “It’s the football town.”
Fans in, say, Philly or Chicago might disagree, but the 52-minute film opens exclusively at the Kamin Science Center’s Rangos Giant Cinema on Sat., Feb. 28.
From Hopewell to the Hill
It was shot in a single weekend last October, when multiple crews captured, among other sights and sounds, Friday night games in Hopewell and Ambridge, a Saturday morning Pop Warner game in the Hill District, Pitt playing N.C. State and the Steelers facing Green Bay at Acrisure Stadium.
Guided by McAfee’s gravel-voiced narration, the film delves not only into the oft-told history of the Steelers — including the late Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception that signaled the definitive turn in the club’s fortunes — but also into Pitt’s football legacy, including its three national championships in the 1910s under legendary coach Pop Warner, whose name still adorns youth football leagues. And it notes the remarkable number of pro players from the region — some 750, including 20 Hall of Famers.
Indeed, Aliquippa High School alone has produced three players enshrined in Canton, Ohio: Darrelle Revis, Ty Law and Mike Ditka.
Inevitably, the film includes considerable archival footage of steelmaking, as well as contemporary footage from U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Works, in Braddock. “Grit is what made football great here,” says McAfee.
The film is presented by U.S. Steel, whose three-hypocycloid logo the team borrowed long ago.
“The Football Town” takes viewers into Pitt’s locker room and along for the ride as a high school team heads to a game. It also incorporates footage of a chat between former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher and one of his retired players, Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis, both of them seated in Point State Park looking across the Allegheny River at Acrisure Stadium.
“Would you say that Pittsburgh thinks football is part of life more than any other place you’ve been?” asks Cowher, a Crafton native.
“I believe so,” says Bettis “I think the people here in Pittsburgh — football is a fabric. It’s like a jacket, it’s the fabric of their lives.”
The film even takes a game-day visit to St. Mary on the Mount Catholic church, where many congregants are wearing Steelers regalia and the priest briefly prays for victory over the Packers.
While the film explores the region’s passion for football, it neglects to mention the Pittsburgh Passion, the city’s successful Women’s Football Alliance team, of which Franco Harris was a co-owner. (The Passion, admittedly, plays its regular-season games in May and June.)
‘It means more to people here’
The idea for the film originated with the Steelers, said Dan Rooney, the team’s vice president of strategy.
Neil Zender was coordinating producer of “The Football Town.” He said it is NFL Film’s first movie in an “immersive format,” meaning it was designed for the Science Center’s oversized, 71-foot-wide screen. He said it was shot using a new camera that allows shooting in slow motion at up to 660 frames per second.
He gave McAfee himself credit for the script’s heavy use of the term “yinzer.”
Zender, speaking after a press screening of the film this past Monday, grew up in Washington state, but he said he isn’t concerned about fans in other cities thinking they live in “the football town.”
He said the time he spent in Pittsburgh convinced him otherwise. “Football is different here, it means more to people here,” he said.
“The Football Town” will run through April 28, shortly after the 2026 NFL draft concludes.