Cameron Heyward wants a new contract from the Pittsburgh Steelers, but how motivated are they to grant his request? The perennial Pro Bowler has 13 NFL seasons under his belt, coming off of one waylaid by injury.
Still on the books for a $16 million base salary, Heyward has expressed a desire for an extension. He is entering the final year of a four-year contract extension signed in 2020 paying him $16.4 million per season. Surprisingly to nobody, he hasn’t gone into detail about exactly what he wants, but he believes skipping OTAs is one tactic to try to help him get it.
“It’s eventually gonna get done, I think”, The Athletic’s Mark Kaboly said this past week on 93.7 The Fan. “The problem that has to be is, we don’t know how much Cam wants. He’s in a very unique place where you don’t see 35-year-old defensive linemen. I think he might be the oldest defensive lineman currently on a roster right now. You look at a guy like Cam Jordan, who’s similar”.
Jordan, part of the same 2011 draft class as Heyward, signed a two-year, $26.5 million extension in 2023. The deal included $14 million fully guaranteed, with the entirety guaranteed for injury. Jordan’s previous deal in 2019 paid him $52.5 million over three years, or $17.5 million per season. Up to this point, Jordan has earned $126,088,635 over the course of his 13-year career with the New Orleans Saints. Heyward isn’t far behind, having earned $115,555,028 from the Steelers in the same span.
But Jordan accepted less per year just last season at $13.25 million as he gets older. Granted, he received about two-thirds of the deal guaranteed and guaranteed entirely for injury. If that’s the sort of deal Heyward is looking for, it seems like something the Steelers will do.
“If Cam wants that type of money”, Kaboly said of Heyward’s potential extension relative to Jordan’s, “I think that’s fair. But if he wants more than that, then I don’t think it is. But I think they’ll eventually come to a common ground here”.
He noted that, as the Saints did with Jordan, the Steelers could give him a large up front signing bonus. This is how the Steelers have handled such contracts recently, as with Joe Haden. On his two-year, $22 million extension in 2019, Pittsburgh granted him a $16.8 million signing bonus. The Steelers could also use void years to spread out the cap hit.
“I think it’s just a matter of time”, Kaboly concluded, about getting something done with Heyward. I’m inclined to agree, as much as Steelers fans may not want to see the team spend another dime there. More than most, I still believe Heyward can play at a high level if healthy, and if he’s healthy, he deserves the money.
The next time he’ll be in front of the media, barring his own podcast, is at mandatory minicamp. The Steelers have two weeks of OTAs for him to skip between now and then. Could the two sides work out a deal in the meantime that leaves both parties satisfied?
