Steelers’ Cameron Heyward Unsure If New Contract Agreement Will Be Reached
Cameron Heyward continues to seek out an adjusted contract before the start of the regular season. With time running out for an agreement to be reached, it does not appear as though a deal will be struck.
Heyward made it known this summer he was aiming for a raise after signing an extension last summer. The 36-year-old left the door open to missing regular season games in the even no restructure was worked out, but it remains to be seen if that will take place. Heyward is still attached to his existing pact as things stand, and on Friday he said (via ESPN’s Brooke Pryor) he is “preparing” to play this week even if no financial changes take place.
“I wish I could be more optimistic,” added Heyward, per Pryor. “Just trying to stay in the moment. I don’t have all the answers. It’s more of me just waiting and see what could happen.”
Though Heyward signed a two-year extension last September with the intention of outplaying the deal and negotiating a raise this year, the Steelers never seemed likely to oblige. They typically avoid engaging in contract talks during the season and rarely extend players with multiple years left on their deal. Though Heyward is still playing at a high level, he is under contract through 2026, per OverTheCap, his age-37 season. Another contract would cost the Steelers more money, both upfront and in guarantees, for years that Heyward may not even play. From a business perspective, it’s difficult to argue with their decision to hold him to his last deal.
Heyward was a full participant in the Steelers’ practice on Friday with no injury designation, per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, meaning an absence on Sunday would clearly be a personal, contract-related decision. Would the longtime Steeler take that drastic step? He’s started every game when healthy since Week 6 of 2013 and has a reputation as the hard-nosed leader of Pittsburgh’s defense. Furthermore, holding out during the regular season has rarely led to the desired results for other players. Overall, it seems unlikely that he would take the drastic step of sitting out a regular season game with seemingly little to gain.
Nikhil Mehta contributed to this article.
Cowboys Working On Likely Record-Setting Deal For LG Tyler Smith
While left guard Tyler Smith and pass rusher Sam Williams were quickly identified as the next priorities following the announcement of cornerback DaRon Bland‘s extension, it seemed like those deals might be destined for dates further off as the regular season fast approached. Smith had remarked that “everything will happen in due time,” and due time may be sooner than expected. 
According to Clarence Hill Jr. of All City DLLS, Dallas is still working towards a long-term deal for Smith, and that deal could reportedly be a record-setting one. After watching wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and quarterback Dak Prescott sign extensions more expensive than they needed to be as the Cowboys reacted to a market set by deals done earlier in the offseason last year, and after watching Micah Parsons depart in part due to the team’s lack of urgency in working towards legitimate negotiations, it would be extremely satisfying to watch Dallas set the market before it has a chance to inflate.
The Cowboys exercised Smith’s fifth-year option before the draft, ensuring that he’d be under contract for at least the next two seasons, but considering how the option groups interior linemen and tackles in the formula determining the fifth-year salary, it’s unlikely that Dallas will allow Smith to play out his fifth season under the option. More likely, the option was picked up as a sign of dedication to getting an extension worked out sooner rather than later.
To clarify about Smith’s expected deal being potentially record-setting, it would likely only set a record among interior offensive linemen. Left tackles tend to pace the market, and Chargers tackle Rashawn Slater leads the NFL currently with an average annual value of $28.5MM. The highest-paid right tackle isn’t far behind, though, as Detroit’s Penei Sewell slots in at $28MM per year. The highest-paid guard, though, doesn’t show up until after eight tackles have been listed, with Chiefs guard Trey Smith making $23.5MM per year on average.
Now, there’s a couple reasons why a potential deal may set a new mark among guards. First off, in only three years of play, Smith already has three accolades to his name as a two-time Pro Bowler and a second-team All-Pro, all earned during the two seasons in which he started at guard. Another reason is the fact that he has a season in which he didn’t start at guard; as a rookie expecting to play guard, Smith stepped in for an injured Tyron Smith to start every game of the season but one at left tackle.
Smith can lean on analytics, as well, to support his case. As a rookie unexpectedly starting as Prescott’s blindside blocker, Pro Football Focus (subscription required) graded Smith as the league’s 25th-best tackle out of 81 players graded at the position. When he bumped back in to guard in his sophomore campaign, PFF slotted him in at 11th of 79. He followed that up last year with a ranking of 15th out of 77 guards. Despite the varying relative position rankings, Smith’s overall grades have been consistently strong and have improved year after year.
Not only is Smith among the cream of the crop at his normal position, but the 24-year-old has also proven he can play at a high level as a tackle if need be. Smith is young and talented and likely has room to grow yet. In a league that has seen its strongest teams win big by winning in the trenches, Dallas would do well to lock Smith down before he shows just how big of a contract he could get on the open market or before some other guards push the market ceiling up higher than it is now.
Eagles Sign DE Za’Darius Smith
10:05pm: VanSumeran suffered a torn patellar tendon on Thursday night against the Cowboys, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter. He will miss the rest of the season as a result.
3:30pm: The Eagles have signed one of the league’s top remaining free agents in edge rusher Za’Darius Smith, per a team announcement.
Smith met with the team in Philadelphia on Friday and passed a physical prior to signing a one-year deal with a maximum value of $9MM, according to FOX Sports’ Jordan Schultz. He will bring a veteran presence to an Eagles edge rushing room that was considered to be one of the team’s weaknesses after losing Josh Sweat and Brandon Graham this offseason.
Smith, who turns 33 years old on Monday, is coming off another solid season with nine sacks and nine tackles for loss in 17 games. He spent the first half of the year in Cleveland before a deadline deal sent him to Detroit. Smith remained linked with the Lions throughout the offseason, but he instead lands in Philadelphia in another savvy move by Eagles general manager Howie Roseman.
Under the CBA, veteran players receive a base salary guarantee if they are on a team’s active roster in Week 1, according to OverTheCap’s Jason Fitzgerald. Veterans signed after Week 1 do not automatically receive a guaranteed salary. Since the Eagles and the Cowboys were the first two teams to finish their Week 1 game on Thursday night, they had the first chance at signing Smith to a non-guaranteed deal. Teams may not have been willing to offer Smith a strong salary before the season since it would have become guaranteed, but the Eagles were able to offer him enough upside while managing their own risk before any club got the chance.
In Philadelphia, Smith will join young edge rushers Nolan Smith, Jalyx Hunt, Josh Uche, Azeez Ojulari, and Ogbo Okoronkwo. Ojulari and Okoronkwo were inactive against the Cowboys with Uche and practice squad elevation Patrick Johnson rotating in behind Nolan Smith and Hunt, per Geoff Mosher of PhillyVoice. With Za’Darius Smith now joining the mix, there will be even fewer snaps to go around, and the Eagles may even consider parting ways with one of their depth edge rushers.
In a corresponding move to the Smith signing, the Eagles placed fullback Ben VanSumeren on injured reserve, sidelining him for at least four games.
UNC, Bill Belichick Ban Patriots Scouts
Despite recent news that a Bill Belichick statue may be coming to Gillette Stadium (per ESPN’s Mike Reiss), some bad blood apparently remains between the rookie collegiate head coach and his former NFL team. 
The University of North Carolina, where Belichick now runs the football program, has reportedly banned the Patriots’ scouts from attending practices at its facility this season, according to ESPN’s Kalyn Kahler and Ben Volin of the Boston Globe. Patriots scouts are also not allowed to attend the Tar Heels’ home games, due to the team’s purported mistreatment of Belichick since he left New England.
Per Volin, the unfair treatment most likely refers to the Apple TV docuseries The Dynasty. The 10-part series, reported to be an independent project but with a copyright held by Kraft Dynasty LLC, focuses quite a bit on pinning the loss of quarterback Tom Brady and the team’s Super Bowl loss to the Eagles on the head coach, while glossing over many of the franchise’s successes under Belichick. Volin adds that NFL Films was originally meant to be involved in the project but stepped away due to the negative tone towards Belichick.
“Why would we let them in our home after how they have treated Belichick since he left?” a source with the Tar Heels said to The Globe. “We will help our players to the fullest, and we will help their scouts over the phone and sharing of film, but being treated fairly is a two-way street.”
ESPN was met with similar undertones of pettiness when they reached out to UNC general manager Michael Lombardi for comment, and he replied with a curt “good luck” before hanging up the phone.
The comments of The Globe’s source ring a bit hollow in their commitment to help their players. Lombardi and the Heels’ pro liaison Frantzy Jourdain were the ones who informed New England of their ban a day before one of the team’s scouts was scheduled to visit in August.
Scouts from other teams informed ESPN that UNC, under Belichick’s directive, is offering limited access to all NFL personnel. It’s not the ban the Patriots have received, but teams can “speak only with Jourdain,” and the Tar Heels’ college relations website, a page only NFL personnel have access to, reportedly says that “scouts will have zero access to coaches or other personnel people,” with the term “zero access” appearing twice more across the site. Per Kahler, one scout claimed that the Tar Heels limit scouts to watch only three periods of practice, while other schools mostly allow full practices to be watched.
All of this gatekeeping could be extremely harmful to the NFL prospects of players on the UNC football team. Obviously, much of the work in scouting comes from watching games and game film to evaluate the abilities of student athletes, but scouts often enjoy several benefits at school facilities, as well. Scouts are able to get in-person assessments at practices, and often, relationships are made with position coaches, personnel staff, and strength coaches that allow scouts access to candid testimonies on a player’s character or work ethic. By severing any access to those kinds of connections, NFL hopefuls won’t have anyone trustworthy advocating on their behalf.
The odd closed-door protocol hardly makes sense for the Patriots, though a line can easily be drawn to retribution against a former employer, but expanding that policy to the rest of the NFL feels disrespectful to the student athletes and neglectful of the duties of a college football program. It will be interesting to see how much these boundaries extend into the pre-draft process, in regard to the school’s pro day and private workouts with teams, but one hopes Belichick and Co. won’t continue standing in the way of their players and the NFL.
When reached for comment, ESPN reports that Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel told the media, “That’s an individual choice, and we’ll cross that bridge when we start looking at players. I’m going to focus on our football team. That’s their prerogative to make the decisions that they feel like are the best for them. We’ll have to find other ways to get the information for any players that we want to look at at North Carolina.”
Nikhil Mehta contributed to this post.
NFL Practice Squad Updates: 9/5/25
Here are Friday’s practice squad moves heading into the first weekend of the NFL season:
Las Vegas Raiders
- Signed: WR Phillip Dorsett
Philadelphia Eagles
- Signed: WR Javon Baker
- Released: OLB Antwaun Powell-Ryland
Minor NFL Transactions: 9/5/25
Here are Friday’s minor transactions as we await Game 2 of the 2025 season, including today’s standard gameday practice squad elevations for the Chiefs and Chargers:
Atlanta Falcons
- Signed off Panthers’ practice squad: DT Sam Roberts
- Released: WR David Sills
- Released (with injury settlement): CB Grayland Arnold
Chicago Bears
- Waived (with injury settlement): C Doug Kramer
Cincinnati Bengals
- Waived (with injury settlement): TE Tanner McLachlan
Green Bay Packers
- Waived (with injury settlement): S Omar Brown
Indianapolis Colts
- Waived (with injury settlement): K Maddux Trujillo
Kansas City Chiefs
- Elevated: DT Marlon Tuipulotu
Las Vegas Raiders
- Placed on reserve/retired list: WR Amari Cooper (story)
Los Angeles Chargers
- Elevated: LS Rick Lovato, T Foster Sarell
Each NFL team is granted two standard gameday practice squad elevations each game, allowing them to call up two members of their practice squad that are able to play in that weekend’s game. After the game is played, the elevated players revert back to the practice squad with no transaction required. This differs from a transaction like we saw earlier today wherein wide receiver Justin Shorter was signed to the Raiders’ active roster from their practice squad. He is now permanently on the team’s 53-man roster until they cut him or until his contract expires.
Practice squad players can be called up a maximum of three times under a single practice squad contract. If the team wants to call up a player who’s been called up three times already, team’s will usually sign the player to their active roster for a game, cut them after, and then sign them to a new practice squad contract. Under a new contract, the player would be eligible to be elevated for three more games.
Bills Place K Tyler Bass On IR
The Bills have placed veteran kicker Tyler Bass on injured reserve, per a team announcement.
Bass was a limited participant in Wednesday’s practice due to a hip/groin issue that will now sideline him for at least four games, including Sunday night’s matchup with the Ravens. Though he has yet to finish a season with a conversion rate above 90%, Bass has been a reliable kicker for his five-year career in Buffalo and hit a career-long 61-yard field goal in 2024.
After Bass went down on Wednesday, the Bills quickly moved to sign Matt Prater to the practice squad as an injury replacement on Thursday. The former Broncos, Cardinals, and Lions kicker missed most of the 2024 season due to a torn meniscus; before that, he made 83.6% of his career field goal attempts, so Buffalo should be able to trust him while Bass is recovering. The Bills can only elevate Prater from the practice squad three times, so they will need to sign him to the active roster if he is going to replace Bass in all four games (and potentially more).
The Bills are also likely to be without veteran cornerback Tre’Davious White on Sunday. He did not practice all week due to a groin injury and is listed as doubtful on the injury report.
The Ravens also ruled out a few key players for Sunday Night Football: fullback Patrick Ricard and tight end Isaiah Likely. Likely is an expected absence as he recovers from preseason foot surgery, while Ricard has missed multiple weeks of practice with a calf injury. Cornerback Jaire Alexander, however, is off the injury report and expected to make his debut in purple and black.
Buccaneers, CB Zyon McCollum Agree To Extension
The Buccaneers have taken care of another extension in time for Week 1. Cornerback Zyon McCollum has a new deal in place.
McCollum’s agents announced on Friday (via ESPN’s Adam Schefter) an agreement has been reached on a three-year extension. The pact has a value of $48MM and includes $35.4MM guaranteed. McCollum was set to enter the season as a pending free agent, but he will now be under contract through 2028.
Today’s news comes as little surprise, considering McCollum was known to be seeking a second Tampa accord. The former fifth-rounder has developed into a mainstay on defense over the course of his first three seasons in the NFL. His rookie campaign included a part-time workload, but the following year resulted in a major jump in playing time. Last season, McCollum handled over 1,000 defensive snaps; he will be relied on as a permanent fixture in the secondary for years to come.
In 2024, the 26-year-old recorded his first two interceptions while adding 17 pass deflections. The latter stat put him in a tie for third in the NFL and helped result in a career-best PFF evaluation. McCollum finished 45th amongst qualifying corners in overall grade after setting a new personal best in completion percentage and passer rating allowed. Continued improvement in that regard would be welcomed and is certainly something the Buccaneers are investing in.
Even if McCollum doesn’t grow into a top-tier cornerback, there is an argument to be made for basic stability at one of the game’s most important positions. With a $16MM APY, McCollum is only the 15th-highest-paid cornerback in the NFL with a market that should continue to grow after a major increase this offseason. Just being a healthy, consistent starter would make his deal a solid value.
With his new deal, McCollum will continue to be a key cog in Tampa Bay’s secondary for the next few years. He’s played next to Jamel Dean for his entire career, but the Buccaneers made a clear effort this offseason to find the future of their cornerback room by drafting Benjamin Morrison and Jacob Parrish on Day 2 of April’s draft. Dean is under contract through 2026, but the exploding cornerback market may preclude another extension in Tampa Bay with younger players waiting in the wings.
Dolphins TE Darren Waller Unlikely To Play In Week 1
Darren Waller‘s Dolphins debut (and NFL return) is set to be delayed by at least one week. The unretired tight end encountered a setback this week, head coach Mike McDaniel said (via ESPN’s Marcel Louis-Jacques). 
[RELATED: Reviewing Dolphins’ Offseason]
As a result, Waller is likely to miss Miami’s season opener against the Colts. A hip strain is the issue in this case, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald notes. Missed time was an issue during the latter stages of Waller’s Raiders tenure as well as his single Giants campaign; things have not gotten off to a good start with the Dolphins.
Waller was moved to the active/PUP list early this summer, but as expected he was activated late in August. That move allowed the former Pro Bowler to return to practice in preparation for his first game action since Week 18 in 2023. At least a short-term issue has now arisen, though, and it will be worth monitoring how long it will keep him sidelined.
The Dolphins included Jonnu Smith in the Jalen Ramsey–Minkah Fitzpatrick trade, dealing him away after a career-best showing in 2024. Questions were raised in the wake of that swap about how Miami would replace Smith at the tight end spot. The team caught many off guard by agreeing to acquire Waller in a trade with the Giants after he made it clear he would only return to the NFL if he could reunite with Dolphins offensive coordinator Frank Smith in the process.
Presuming Waller is sidelined on Sunday, the Dolphins will need to rely on Julian Hill and Jalin Conyers at the tight end spot. Hill entered the league as an undrafted free agent in 2023 and Conyers did the same this spring. Experience will be in short supply as a result for however long Waller is unavailable.
Panthers’ Damarri Mathis Suffers ACL Tear
Damarri Mathis will not be available to the Panthers in 2025. The fourth-year cornerback has suffered an ACL tear, head coach Dave Canales said on Friday (via ESPN’s David Newton). 
Mathis spent his first three seasons with the Broncos, and he was in Denver through the summer. The former fourth-rounder was among the team’s roster cuts last week, and he hit the waiver wire as a result. The Panthers added Mathis via a claim.
Instead of having him available for the final season of his rookie deal, however, Carolina will be shorthanded at the cornerback spot. The 26-year-old made 43 appearances and 13 starts over the course of his Broncos tenure. Adding to those totals would have helped Mathis’ market value ahead of his first trip to free agency next spring. Now, his attention will turn to surgery and a lengthy rehab process.
The injury will deal a blow to Mathis’ earning potential on the open market. The Missouri product emerged as a trade candidate last season, but Denver elected to keep him in the fold through the remainder of the campaign. Mathis was not a regular contributor on defense, but he chipped in on special teams with a snap share of 44% in that regard. At least a part-time role in both capacities could have been in store with the Panthers.
Instead, Carolina will move forward with a cornerback group led once again by Jaycee Horn after his massive extension was worked out in the offseason. Michael Jackson, Akayleb Evans, Chau Smith-Wade and Corey Thornton round out the team’s depth chart at the position. Mathis will head to injured reserve, and it will be interesting to see if the Panthers pursue an addition in his absence.
Carolina entered Friday with roughly $14MM in cap space. As a result, a low-cost addition could be feasible. Kendall Fuller and Mike Hilton are among the most experienced options still on the market, while Stephon Gilmore is still unsigned. Gilmore – whose most recent Pro Bowl season (2021) came with the Panthers – said in July he would be open to continuing his career in 2025, but only under the right circumstances. It remains to be seen if a Carolina reunion would qualify, but in any case the team could stand to add depth in the secondary.