Steelers' Cam Heyward expected to sit out offseason program in search of contract extension
While the NFL schedule release is supposed to be the news of the evening, the Pittsburgh Steelers and more specifically Cam Heyward are stealing the show. As reported by Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, Heyward will be sitting out OTAs and all team activities as he searches for a contract extension: Heyward Opts Out Steelers defensive […]
While the NFL schedule release is supposed to be the news of the evening, the Pittsburgh Steelers and more specifically Cam Heyward are stealing the show.
As reported by Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, Heyward will be sitting out OTAs and all team activities as he searches for a contract extension:
Heyward Opts Out
Steelers defensive lineman and reigning Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Cameron Heyward has not attended voluntary offseason workouts and does not plan to attend OTAs as he seeks a contract extension, sources told ESPN's Jeremy Fowler. Heyward, set to become a free agent in 2025, has never missed an offseason program.
-Brooke Pryor, ESPN
The news comes as a surprise, as just days ago Hewyard told Steelers Now that he was looking for an extension and preparing to play for 2-3 more years, with the Steelers seemingly aligned in that thinking:
"We’ve talked about an extension,” Heyward told Steelers Now. “We’ll see what happens. My goal is to play two to three more years. Mostly three. I’m looking for an opportunity. We’ll see what happens. I’d like it to be here, but my goal is to play. So we’ll see.”
A captain, 6x Pro Bowler, 3X All-Pro and reigning Walter Payton Man of the Year, Heyward has given his all to the organization, but football is a business in the end, and it can be a cruel one.
Approaching his age-35 season and the final year of his current deal, Pittsburgh could have asked Heyward to take a pay cut on his $22.4m cap hit, but it seems like they are more content with seeing where things stand after the season.
On top of being in his mid 30's, (which is pushing it for all football players but especially ones as reliant on their physical stature as interior defensive lineman) Heyward is coming back from a groin-core muscle injury that required surgery and forced him to miss over six weeks of action before coming back and not being able to contribute how he wanted after "playing on one leg" as he put it.
"Of course, I want to play, in my mind, I want to play more than just one more season," Heyward said in January. "I've just got to get healthy first. We talk about coming back from injury, I was told at the time it was a 12-week process, and we came back in six weeks. I fought the doctors every week. … I just wanted to put my hand in that pile. But the flip side of that is I put my body through a lot of pain this year. It was getting me to the stadium and go from there, but I can't be doing that year in and year out."
Pittsburgh begins OTAs in less than two weeks.
