At this point in the career of fourth-year Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Alex Highsmith, nothing that he does on the field can be noted as a surprise. At least, that’s the belief of Steelers’ star defensive lineman Cameron Heyward.
Appearing on Good Morning Football Thursday as part of his weekly segment, Heyward — who is currently on Injured Reserve after having surgery on his groin following a Week One injury against the San Francisco 49ers — had a lot of praise for Highsmith coming off his dominant showing in Week Two on Monday Night Football, earning AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors.
In the 26-22 win over the Cleveland Browns at Acrisure Stadium, Highsmith had a pick-six and a strip-sack of Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson that fellow outside linebacker T.J. Watt returned 16 yards for the game-winning touchdown. Nothing about Highsmith’s performance surprised Heyward.
“I just think when you look at Alex, it’s not a surprise. You look at what he did last year, having 14-and-a-half sacks just being a dominant force without T.J. last year,” Heyward stated on Good Morning Football, according to video via NFL Network. “But now you put those two guys together — I heard J.J. Watt even say they were similar to like a Dwight Freeney and a Robert Mathis — but just because of the destruction they have. So, going forward, we’re gonna need both of those guys to just keep moving along and keep having a lot of success.”
Monday night’s showing was largely what the Steelers have come to expect from the duo of Watt and Highsmith.
In Week One last season, Highsmith and Watt dominated the Cincinnati Bengals together in a 20-23 overtime win, a game that Watt was eventually injured in. That, of course, caused him to miss the next seven games. When he returned in Week 10 last season against the New Orleans Saints, Watt helped unlock Highsmith again.
That week, Highsmith had 3.5 sacks against the Saints and a forced fumble, earning his first AFC Defensive Player of the Week honor.
Then on Monday night, after a relatively quiet Week One against Trent Williams and the San Francisco 49ers — a game in which Watt dominated opposite him with three sacks and two forced fumbles — Highsmith went off against the Browns. Along with the pick-six and the strip sack, Highsmith generated six total pressures and five run stops and a 15.8% pass-rush win rate while recording an overall grade from Pro Football Focus of 91.1.
When healthy, Highsmith and Watt form arguably the best pass rush duo in football. The comparisons of Freeney and Mathis from J.J. Watt on the Pat McAfee Show Wednesday were rather apt, and that’s a credit to Highsmith and his overall development, raising his game to a new level playing opposite T.J. Watt.
With Heyward out the next three weeks — at minimum — Highsmith is going to have to continue to dominate the way that he did Monday night. Good news is he has intriguing matchups the next two weeks in Las Vegas’ Kolton Miller and Houston’s Laremy Tunsil to prove himself even further before getting a crack at Baltimore’s Ronnie Stanley again in Week Five.
