If it wasn’t obvious enough from his postgame comments after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ loss to the Buffalo Bills on Monday, Cameron Heyward will be a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers next year. On his Not Just Football podcast, Heyward made it clear that he’ll be back playing football next season.
“I’m not retiring. I hate to be blunt about it, but I’m not retiring. I would like to get my body healthy. I just played the entire season on freaking leg where I could barely run right after the season. It was cool to come back and stuff, and I get that, but you don’t understand what you deal with when you play a full game and your body goes into shock, because it’s like ‘what the hell did you just try to put me through?'”
He also said he wants to play beyond next season, but he needs to let his body heal.
“I don’t plan on just playing one more season and I’ll say that right here, but I gotta let my body heal and I gotta let my body get back to feeling good again. I’m not going through this season doing this stuff again. It’s not fair to my body, it’s not fair to my family for me to do what I did this past year and try to do it for multiple seasons.”
Heyward partially tore his groin on the first day of training camp before tearing the muscle completely in Week One against the San Francisco 49ers, an injury that doctors told him would be a 12-week recovery. A little over six weeks later though, Heyward was back at practice and returned against the Tennessee Titans in Week 9.
Heyward isn’t getting younger, and he’ll be 35 years old at the start of next season. But he wants to win a Super Bowl, and he still loves the game and is playing at a high level. He’s one of the most important pieces of Pittsburgh’s defense, and having him back next season will help solidify Pittsburgh’s defensive line.
Heyward’s future seems to be a yearly offseason storyline after the past few seasons, and this season it at least felt like there was a tiny possibility it could be it for him after he talked about how “rough” the 2023 season is. But knowing how hard he worked to rehab and return to the field, the pain from his injury was going to linger with him returning ahead of schedule, and it also goes to show how much he still cares and how much he loves football and loves the Steelers.
The Steelers will welcome Heyward back with open arms next season, and while they make work to adjust his contract to free up some cap room, Heyward deserves every cent he will get paid. He also doesn’t care for the talk that he needs to take a pay cut.
“Screw the people who keep talking about me getting a paycut.”
Heyward won’t take a pay cut, with a contract restructure more likely, but it doesn’t sound like he wants to or will be taking any less money to return, and frankly, nor should he after what he did this past year to return to the field and help the Steelers.
While the Steelers season came to an unfortunate end, it now allows Heyward to take more time in the offseason to rest a little bit and really get himself healthy before gearing up to try to win his first Super Bowl with Pittsburgh in 2024.
Watch the full episode of Not Just Football below.
