{"id":97305,"date":"2026-07-12T03:22:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T03:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/former-steelers-first-rounder-greg-hawthorne-dies\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T03:22:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T03:22:58","slug":"former-steelers-first-rounder-greg-hawthorne-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/former-steelers-first-rounder-greg-hawthorne-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Steelers first-rounder Greg Hawthorne dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><body><\/p>\n<div class=\"RichTextArticleBody RichTextBody\">\n<p>Greg Hawthorne, the Steelers&#39; first-round pick in 1979, <span class=\"LinkEnhancement\"><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.post-gazette.com\/sports\/steelers\/2026\/07\/10\/hawthorne-dies-obituary-nfl-player\/stories\/202607100049\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has died<\/a><\/span>. He was 69.<\/p>\n<p>A member of the Super Bowl XIV-winning team, Hawthorne spent five seasons in Pittsburgh. He then played for the Patriots for three seasons, before finishing his career in Indianapolis in 1987 as a three-game replacement player during the strike.<\/p>\n<p>Hawthorne played running back, receiver, and tight end during his eight-year NFL career. He finished with 527 rushing yards, 1,112 receiving yards, and 11 touchdowns.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1985 AFC Championship upset of the Dolphins, Hawthorne recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff of the second half, setting up a touchdown that gave New England a 24-7 lead. The Patriots went on to upset Miami for a berth in Super Bowl XX, 31-14.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/body><br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/former-steelers-first-rounder-greg-001409413.html\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greg Hawthorne, the Steelers&#39; first-round pick in 1979, has died. He was 69. A member of the Super Bowl XIV-winning team, Hawthorne spent five seasons in Pittsburgh. He then played for the Patriots for three seasons, before finishing his career in Indianapolis in 1987 as a three-game replacement player during the strike. Hawthorne played running [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1668,29851,471,9299,29852,10707],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}