Steelers defensive lineman Cam Heyward made some headlines on his podcast last week when he said he wasn’t going to go on a “darkness retreat” to recruit a certain quarterback to Pittsburgh, but he’s not downplaying the need for the team to take action in 2025.
Heyward was a guest on The Rich Eisen Show last Friday and the topic of the team’s trade for wide receiver DK Metcalf came up. The Steelers sent a second-round pick to Seattle for Metcalf and Heyward applauded the move by saying that “we’ve got to win now” rather than build for some point in the future.
The veteran noted players like T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick aren’t getting any younger while saying the team has to “maximize those opportunities to win at a high level.”
“I think we’re in a state of urgency,” Heyward said. “We have a lot of guys, like myself, that are in the latter stages of their career and we all want to win. It’s not just enough to win a playoff game, which we haven’t won in a couple years, and there’s a bad taste in our mouth because of that.”
Heyward also revisited his quarterback comments since his appearance came on the same day that Aaron Rodgers was visiting the Steelers facility. Heyward said he didn’t think he was calling Rodgers out by saying he either wants to be a Steeler or he doesn’t, but did admit that there was a narrative link between the predicaments the quarterback and the team find themselves in.
“There’s some poetic moves being played,” Heyward said. “The last Super Bowl he won was against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and now we kind of need him to come over here and win a Super Bowl.”
Rodgers hasn’t shown overwhelming urgency to sign with a team since being released by the Jets, but it continues to look like the Steelers are his best opportunity to start and that he’s the Steelers’ best opportunity to make the most of the 2025 season. That leads to the feeling that the marriage will happen, although it’s no sure thing that the result will be the one that Heyward is looking for.
