There are a slew of Ohio State players who have done well at the next level in the NFL. And if you’re a Buckeye fan, oftentimes there is cross-over to an Ohio NFL team. If you live in Columbus, there’s almost an even split in town between rooting for the Cleveland Browns or Cincinnati Bengals. It’s nothing unusual to be watching a Browns or Bengals game on television and see some Ohio State gear scattered about the crowd (pre-pandemic that is).
And while Ohio State can recruit with the best of programs nationwide, it has historically done a very good job of keeping the best talent in the state. So while you’ll see guys from Texas, California, Florida and beyond, there’s something to be said about being a proud Ohio guy and playing for the state school.
It should be no surprise then that the Buckeyes have a ton of talent that’s come from the Ohio NFL cities of Cleveland and Cincinnati. In fact, no other city even comes close to those areas for producing NFL legend widgets for the Buckeye pipeline to the game’s highest level.
Our sister NFL wire sites (also a part of USA TODAY Sports Media Group) recently completed a pretty cool project of looking at NFL cities, and what schools those homegrown talents went to. It’s called Hometown Legends and it’s interesting conversation and fodder for any football junkie — college or pro.
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The Cleveland Browns area led the way, and thanks to Browns Wire, we’ve got the breakdown for you. All of the following players were included in the Homegrown Legends from Northeast Ohio:
– WR Paul Warfield
– WR Dante Lavelli
– OT Orlando Pace
– DT Bill Willis
– DE Mike Vrabel
– LB Randy Gradishar
– LB Chris Spielman
– CB Antoine Winfield
The Cinncinnati Bengal area was also well-represented though with seven Hometown Legends thanks to Bengals Wire:
– WR Chris Carter
– OT Dave Foley
– DE Dan Wilkinson
– DT Jim Marshall
– LB A.J. Hawk
– S Dick LeBeau
– K Mike Nugent
It’s worth noting too that the NFL Wire sites thought so much of Chase Young already that he also was idenified as a Hometown Legend out of the D.C area. Also, Dwayne Haskins has representation for Baltimore as well.
And there’s more on this list too from other NFL cities, but the drop off from Ohio is significant.
This all culminates in a tournament to determine which Hometown Legend Team is the best of the 32 NFL cities based on fan voting. Go represent Cincinnati or Cleveland and advance some O-H-I-O love.
You can find links to all 32 NFL teams’ Homegrown Legends pages below:
Dal / NYG / Phi / Was // Chi / Det / GB / Min /
/ Atl / Car / NO / TB // Ari / LAR / SF / Sea /
/ Buf / Mia / NE / NYJ // Bal / Cin / Cle / Pit /
/ Hou / Ind / Jax / Ten // Den / KC / LV / LAC
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