Pittsburgh Steelers DL Cam Heyward has played with a lot of good pass rushers throughout his career. Early in his career, he played with James Harrison and LaMarr Woodley. He’s been there since the Steelers drafted T.J. Watt.
Heyward has also seen Alex Highsmith develop and earn his big payday this past offseason. That kind of payday puts a lot of pressure and expectations on a young player. Some may argue that Highsmith’s 4.5 sacks and five tackles for a loss this season aren’t living up to the contract. Just don’t tell that to Heyward. He was asked during Friday’s media availability about how well Highsmith is playing this season, and Heyward had nothing but praise for the young outside linebacker per the video from Steelers.com.
“Alex is playing his tail off,” Heyward said. “I think it’s just very low-hanging fruit when you just look at sacks. Yes, that’s the finishing goal, but to put pressure on multiple times, he’s playing like a game wrecker. When you have those types of disruptions, that should be noticed more than just your sacks.”
We all love to see sacks when the defense is on the field. It’s a big splash play, the opposing quarterback gets rattled, and it just gives everyone a boost. So of course we want to see Highsmith taking down quarterbacks like he did last year when he had a career-high 14.5 sacks.
However, as Heyward notes, you can’t evaluate Highsmith just on the sacks alone. He already has 19 quarterback pressures, just nine less than he did over the entire 2022 season. He has 13 quarterback hits, just seven less than last season. He also has five hurries as well.
Highsmith has been consistently disruptive this season, but he stepped it up on the stat sheet against the Tennessee Titans last Thursday night. He had two sacks, two tackles for a loss, and five quarterback hits, all of which were season highs.
When an outside linebacker is continually disrupting as Highsmith has, the production will come around. If the game against the Titans is any indication, we’re seeing that exact thing happen. However, just because he hasn’t had eye-popping sack numbers doesn’t mean he hasn’t been worth the contract.
After all, Highsmith did have an interception returned for a touchdown and then forced a fumble that was returned for a touchdown in the win over the Cleveland Browns in Week Two. How can you not appreciate a player who absolutely wrecked the Browns in a Monday night game?
