{"id":178171,"date":"2026-04-28T12:17:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/178171\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T12:17:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:17:19","slug":"parkersburg-high-school-senior-announces-falcons-6th-round-nfl-draft-pick-in-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/178171\/","title":{"rendered":"Parkersburg High School senior announces Falcons\u2019 6th round NFL Draft pick in Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">PITTSBURGH, Pa. (WTAP) &#8211; Parkersburg High School senior Jacob Smith traveled to Pittsburgh on Saturday to announce the Atlanta Falcons\u2019 pick at number 215 overall in the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Falcons drafted LSU linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. with the pick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Smith spoke about his experience at the draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cBig honor, big opportunity. Such big excitement I must say. I was very brave. Everyone at my school was happy for me,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Smith said he was able to announce the pick after recently speaking with Falcons wide receiver Drake London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI was given an invitation after a very successful interview with Drake London,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Smith added that he is pleased with the selection of Perkins and is hopeful for big things in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cHopefully more wins. Especially against the Buccaneers,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Editor\u2019s note: The video for this story will be added once it airs. Please check back for the updated video.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WTAP. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH, Pa. (WTAP) &#8211; Parkersburg High School senior Jacob Smith traveled to Pittsburgh on Saturday to announce the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2376,12781,12786,12784,12783,73,75,74,12785,12787,12782],"class_list":["post-178171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-live-speeches","tag-live-updates","tag-live-video","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-press-conference","tag-real-time-coverage","tag-video-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}