For most of his career, Cameron Heyward has been viewed as the consummate Pittsburgh Steelers good guy.
A team captain. A Walter Payton Man of the Year. A good teammate. A leader. An All-Pro. Mr. Consistent.
He’s also the guy who once famously said of Aaron Rodgers’ protracted decision-making process, “Either you want to be a Pittsburgh Steeler or you don’t.”
Given recent events, that statement now resonates somewhere between blatantly ironic and patently hypocritical.
After all, somebody saying such a thing probably shouldn’t be withholding himself from training camp practices with two seasons left on a valid contract after collecting a $13 million signing bonus to play this year.
That suggests to me that the club wants Heyward to be a Steeler. And, at some point before he signed the deal, Heyward also wanted to be a Steeler.
So be a Steeler and start practicing, Cam.
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Sure, I’m probably oversimplifying things. And I’ll admit that Heyward certainly won Monday’s round of the P.R. battle in this ongoing hold-in when he pointed out that he first approached the Steelers with a new proposal in February.
Heyward also claimed that when he signed his current contract, he told Steelers brass, “‘When I have an All-Pro Year, expect me to come back.’ I think everybody kind of giggled a little bit, but in my head, I used it as motivation for improvement.”
If those things are true, then it is certainly hard to victimize the Steelers organization as the aggrieved party in this soap opera.
However, I’m not exactly ready to babyface Heyward either. It’s not this organization’s job to correct Heyward’s contract for how the market has gone up after Heyward signed the deal.
It’s also not the franchise’s job to assuage Heyward’s buyer’s remorse on his own contract, nor are they beholden to having to pay Heyward top-of-the-market prices all the way up to his retirement.
It sounds like the 36-year-old Heyward was trying to live in two worlds at once by signing the contract that he did. He wanted to gamble on having a great year in 2024 after an injury-plagued 2023 drove down his value.
That happened.
But he also wanted the security of at least lining up a hefty, but team-manageable $13 million roster bonus if he was still on the team in March as an award.
“For me, my family, we value stability, but at the same time, I value being valued as well,” Heyward said Monday. “I can’t complain about what happened, because I was coming off an injury, which I chose to play through and be there for my guys. At the end of the day, I want to be there for them, regardless of if I’m on this team, but you can’t cry about spilled milk.”
Except that’s kinda what Heyward is doing, and he wants to soak up that spilled milk with tens of millions of dollar bills.
Either bet on yourself and sign a one-year “prove it” deal, then hit free agency. Or take the security of the under-value multi-year contract and live with it.
Of course, with the ridiculous nature of how NFL contracts work, Heyward had the luxury of enjoying the best of both possible outcomes of that decision.
That’s if the Steelers give in to his demands and go against their usual policy by reworking a contract more than one year out. Which I assume they eventually will.
After all, on Monday, the Steelers captain stood in front of a Steelers backdrop, next to a Steelers media relations employee just off of Chuck Noll Field, telling the world the Steelers weren’t paying him enough.
Cam Heyward is explains his hold in. Says he requested a new contract in February
“When I signed the deal last year, I told them when I have an All Pro year I wanna come back (and renegotiate)… everyone kinda giggled.”
Heyward was All Pro in 2024 pic.twitter.com/doo7ZXDIqG
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) August 11, 2025
This thing is getting done. If it was truly acrimonious between Heyward’s agents and general manager Omar Khan, such a scene wouldn’t have been staged.
“There’s been talks. I had a talk with Omar (Monday), and I’ve talked to Mr. Rooney. I’ve talked to Mike (Tomlin). There’s a level of respect there. I respect this organization for what they’ve done. I just want to continue playing at a high level,” Heyward said.
“I think there’s an easier way to get this done, to still respect the Steelers and what they do.”
But, at the same time, Heyward didn’t rule out the idea of potentially missing regular-season games over this dispute.
Yet another contradiction.
Given how this story has developed, should we be surprised?
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
