Since the 2023 season ended for the Pittsburgh Steelers a few weeks ago, it seems like a foregone conclusion that veteran DT Cameron Heyward will return in 2024 for a 14th season. That said, Heyward’s scheduled 2024 salary cap charge of $22,406,250 will be an obstacle that the team will likely need to work around during the offseason. On Monday, Steelers team president Art Rooney II held his annual end-of-the-season media session with select reporters. In it, he addressed Heyward’s potential future with the team.
Rooney was asked specifically about how the Steelers might go about working around Heyward’s 2024 salary cap charge in 2024 and if his contract will need to be manipulated some this offseason.
“I don’t know if it would be fair to Cam for me to say too much about it at this stage of the game,” Rooney said, according to audio played Monday afternoon on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh.” Obviously, those are things we’ll get into as we get deeper into the offseason. And I’ll just say this, we want Cam on our team this year and maybe going forward. He’s as solid of an individual in the locker room as you could ever want, and that’s valuable to us. And unfortunately, he had some injuries to overcome this year, and hopefully, he gets healthy and can come back really strong next year.”
As you can tell by Rooney’s response on Monday, Heyward is almost certain to be back in 2024. He is, however, entering the final year of his current contract. In order to get his 2024 salary cap charge decreased this offseason, he’ll either need to take a cut in pay or sign an extension with no new money included for the upcoming season. Based on what Heyward said during his own podcast right after the 2023 season ended, it doesn’t sound like he’s interested in taking a cut in 2024 pay, which is set to be $16 million.
More than likely, Heyward will be asked to sign a two-year extension at some point during the offseason. Such an extension would likely include a large chunk of the $16 million he’s due in base salary being turned into a signing bonus so that it can prorated over the full length of the extension. Such an extension would likely result in Heyward’s 2024 salary cap charge decreasing by around $9.5 million, give or take.
The Steelers did two-year extensions 10 years ago with two aging veterans, S Troy Polamalu and TE Heath Miller, to decrease their respective salary cap charges for that upcoming season. At that time, both players were entering the final year of their respective contracts. Neither player received new money in the current year as part of that extension. Heyward’s current situation matches that of Polamalu’s and Miller’s.
By signing Heyward to an extension without immediate void years included, it would allow him to play beyond the 2024 season should both sides decide that’s the direction that should be traveled.
For now, and with it only being the end of January, it’s hard to speculate when we might see something done with Heyward’s contract that’ll define his future. Even so, it’s not hard to speculate that the two sides might get the contract obstacle handled by the start of the new league year in March. At the very least, everyone should count on Heyward remaining with the Steelers in 2024 and potentially even beyond.
Heyward, who will turn 35 in May, missed six games in 2023 with a groin injury that required surgery. He ended the 2023 season with 33 total tackles, six tackles for loss, two sacks, three quarterback hits and a pass defensed. Heyward’s future in 2024 seems largely set though anything beyond that is less certain.
