Some players become great. Some players have greatness attached to their name before they ever reach college.

Sean Gilbert was the second kind.

When we talk about the greatest football talents ever produced by Western Pennsylvania, Gilbert has to be somewhere in the conversation. And I’m not just talking about what he eventually became in the NFL.

Go all the way back to Aliquippa. Gilbert was a monster before most of America knew his name.

Then America found out.

He became one of the most highly regarded high school football players in the country, earning USA Today National Defensive Player of the Year honors and Parade All-American recognition.

Read that again.

National Defensive Player of the Year.

Not Beaver County. Not WPIAL. Not Pennsylvania. The entire country.

That’s the level of prospect Sean Gilbert was coming out of Aliquippa.

And unlike a lot of highly recruited high school players, the hype followed him to the next level.

 

He Stayed Home and Became an All-American

Gilbert could have gone just about anywhere. Instead, he stayed home and played at Pitt.

And the talent translated.

Gilbert developed into an All-American defensive lineman for the Panthers and became one of the most disruptive defensive players in college football.

He had the combination NFL scouts dream about. Size. Strength. Athleticism. Explosion.

At around 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds, he could move in a way somebody that size wasn’t supposed to move.

His final college game came against Penn State. Gilbert finished with 16 tackles and 1½ sacks.

That’s one way to leave.

After three seasons at Pitt, there wasn’t much left for NFL scouts to figure out.

Gilbert declared for the draft. No. 3 in the Entire NFL Draft.

Sometimes we throw around the phrase “high draft pick” too casually. Sean Gilbert wasn’t simply a high draft pick. He went third overall in the 1992 NFL Draft to the Los Angeles Rams. Third player selected in the entire country.

That’s rare air.

Think about the journey. Aliquippa. National Defensive Player of the Year. Pitt. All-American. No. 3 overall pick.

At every stop, Gilbert didn’t just belong. He stood out.

Then he got to the NFL and immediately showed why teams thought so highly of him.

Gilbert started all 16 games as a rookie and earned PFWA All-Rookie honors.

Then came his second season. Ten-and-a-half sacks. Pro Bowl.

He was only 23 years old. That’s where this story gets interesting to me.

 

What Was Sean Gilbert’s Ceiling?

I’m not asking what Sean Gilbert could have become if he had made the NFL. He made it.

I’m not asking what he could have become if he had developed into a good NFL player. He did that too.

I’m asking something different. What was the ceiling for a player who was already a Pro Bowler at 23 years old?

Because when you trace Gilbert’s football life, there was never really a level that overwhelmed him.

High school? National recognition.

College? All-American.

NFL? Third overall pick and a Pro Bowler in Year 2.

That’s not a normal progression. That’s the progression of somebody who had a chance to become special even by NFL standards.

 

Then You Hear About the Physical Toll

This is where I look at Gilbert’s career differently.

Gilbert has said football eventually resulted in 17 surgeries and that he lives with pain 24 hours a day.

Seventeen surgeries.

Forget football for a second and just think about what that number means for a human body. Shoulders. Knees. Hip. Years of collisions with some of the biggest and strongest athletes on earth.

Gilbert didn’t have a short NFL career. He lasted 11 seasons and played 146 games.

That’s important because I don’t want to rewrite his career into something it wasn’t. Injuries didn’t prevent Sean Gilbert from becoming a successful NFL player.

The better question is whether the accumulated physical punishment prevented him from becoming an even greater one.

 

We Saw What He Could Do When Everything Was Clicking

That’s what makes his 1993 season so fascinating.

Gilbert was 23. He had 10½ sacks from the defensive line and made the Pro Bowl.

If you’re producing like that that early in your career, naturally you’re thinking about what Years 4, 5, 6 and 7 might look like.

Could he become a perennial Pro Bowler? Could he become one of the dominant defensive linemen of his generation? Could he eventually put together a résumé that had people discussing him among the greatest defensive players Western Pennsylvania ever produced?

Those aren’t ridiculous questions when you consider where he started.

But football has a way of changing careers. Sometimes suddenly. Sometimes gradually.

A shoulder here. A knee there. Another surgery. Another rehabilitation. Another season of playing through something the public barely knows about.

Eventually it adds up.

 

And That’s Why Statistics Don’t Tell His Entire Story

Gilbert finished his NFL career with 42½ sacks.

That’s a good number.

But if you only pull up his career statistics, you miss what Sean Gilbert actually represented as a football talent. This was one of the best defensive players in America coming out of high school.

An All-American at Pitt. The No. 3 selection in an NFL Draft. A Pro Bowler at 23.

That’s why 42½ sacks almost makes me ask another question instead of giving me an answer.

What would those numbers have looked like if his body had cooperated differently? Maybe 60 sacks. Maybe 70. Maybe more Pro Bowls. Maybe we’re talking about him today in an entirely different historical category.

Nobody can know.

That’s the point of a “What If?”

 

Aliquippa Has Produced Some Freakish Football Talent

There aren’t many communities in America that can talk football history the way Aliquippa can.

Mike Ditka. Ty Law. Darrelle Revis. Sean Gilbert.

Different eras. Different positions. Different journeys.

But Gilbert’s story has always fascinated me because his dominance started so early. Before the NFL. Before Pitt. Before most people outside Western Pennsylvania knew much about him.

He was already THAT DUDE.

And then he kept proving it at every level.

That’s what separates him for me.

 

Maybe We Never Saw the Full Version

Sean Gilbert had a successful NFL career.

Let’s never lose sight of that.

Eleven seasons in the NFL is an accomplishment by itself. Being selected third overall is an accomplishment. Making a Pro Bowl is an accomplishment. Playing 146 NFL games is an accomplishment.

But sometimes a great career can still leave you wondering if there was an even greater career inside of it.

That’s Sean Gilbert for me.

When you’re National Defensive Player of the Year in high school, an All-American in college, the No. 3 pick in the NFL Draft and a Pro Bowler at 23, you’ve already shown the world what kind of talent you possess.

Then you hear 17 surgeries and a lifetime of pain.

And I can’t help but wonder.

Not whether Sean Gilbert was great. How much greater could he have been if his body had allowed him to be?

That’s my What If? with Sean Gilbert.