As Alex Kozora outlined on the site yesterday, Pittsburgh Steelers star OLB T.J. Watt and DL Cameron Heyward have just one playoff win between the two of them. Those two are already team legends who deserve better, and during his end-of-year press conference, Mike Tomlin talked about another team legend who never got a Super Bowl ring in Maurkice Pouncey and said Pouncey not winning one is one of his biggest professional regrets.
“I think I always move in that urgency,” Tomlin via the team’s YouTube channel said about winning a championship for a veteran like Heyward. “I think you can point to guys like that annually that are deserving of being champions and you want them to have that taste. It’s probably one of my biggest regrets professionally is that Maurkice Pouncey, for example, is not a world champion, because that guy is. So that is a motivating factor for me certainly but continually it is.”
Pouncey’s best chance to win a ring was his rookie year in 2010, when the Steelers went to the Super Bowl and lost to the Green Bay Packers. Pouncey missed that game with an injury, and a good argument can be made that the Steelers would’ve won that game had Pouncey been healthy. He never returned to the Super Bowl in his career, retiring after a Wild-Card Round loss to the Cleveland Browns in 2020.
Pittsburgh’s lack of playoff success is really highlighted when you look at someone like Pouncey never winning a ring and Watt and Heyward’s collective lack of playoff success. The Steelers did go to the AFC Championship Game in 2016, but Heyward missed that playoff run due to a torn pec. It should be a motivating factor for Tomlin and the rest of the team as an incentive to win a ring as if being a Super Bowl champion isn’t enough. Still, any extra motivation you can look for as a coach and player is a good thing, and winning one for Heyward in the twilight of his career should certainly add an extra layer for everyone involved with the team.
The Steelers are a franchise built on winning Super Bowls, and to send another team legend like Heyward to retirement without one, as they did with Pouncey, would just be sad. Hopefully, the Steelers and Tomlin will be able to get it done and give Heyward the taste of postseason success he deserves.
