I talked just earlier today about the fact that the Pittsburgh Steelers defense, its intended bread and butter, had hardly played at full strength this season. DL Cameron Heyward went down in the first half of the opener with a groin injury, and that’s the last time the entire starting lineup has been healthy.
Since then, they’ve lost two starting inside linebackers as well. And by the time Heyward returned, S Minkah Fitzpatrick had gone down with a hamstring injury. Even though the defensive captain is back, he knows he’s not playing at full capacity.
“I’m getting better. Week in and week out. It’s a process”, Heyward said about his health status during his Not Just Football podcast yesterday. “I would definitely say this past week was a little bit better. It’s something I’m currently working on. I didn’t expect to be 100 percent coming back off of the injury but working through some things”.
Heyward missed five games before returning in Week Nine against the Tennessee Titans. He played arguably his best game since his return on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals, a game that featured his first sack since the 2022 season—which he knows he shouldn’t have to share with T.J. Watt.
This is only the second injury of major significance that Heyward has dealt with in his career, the first occurring in 2016. That one also landed him on the Reserve/Injured List, but since then he has made the Pro Bowl every year.
Given the time lost, he will be hard-pressed to make it this year, but he still believes his best of the season is ahead of him. “Through that, I think I’ll finally start to catch my rhythm here pretty soon”, he said, and the Steelers could certainly use that.
Heyward registered four total tackles against the Bengals, including a sack of QB Jake Browning for a six-yard loss. He also tackled RB Joe Mixon on run plays three times, holding him to four yards on a trio of 1st-and-10 plays.
It was beneficial to him, of course, that the offense was finally moving and controlling possession. For the first time this season and in quite a while, the offense did not post a single three-and-out. The only competitive drive that didn’t last over two minutes began with under two minutes to play in the first half. Six times they possessed the ball for more than three minutes.
“I can’t even remember a game where we only had 45 plays as a defense”, Heyward said, the defense only on the field for about 23 minutes of game time. “I had 36 I think. That’s the lowest I’ve had since the first game. Snap counts were down for me, and it looked like I played more, but we didn’t have a lot of reps.
“The best defense is a defense on the sideline, and I will totally take that to be on the sideline every time watching our offense cook”. The question is, of course, what kind of chefs do they have now after firing Matt Canada?
