Pittsburgh Steelers News & Rumors

Questions about Cameron Heyward‘s 2025 status loomed last year, when the standout defensive lineman had come off a season in which an injury provided significant limitations. The Steelers, however, extended their top piece up front to seemingly put an end to contract speculation.

A year later, however, Heyward is not happy with his deal. The Steelers tacked on a two-year, $29MM extension to the likely Hall of Famer’s through-2024 contract; as a result, he is signed through the 2026 season. Heyward bounced back in 2024, earning his fourth first-team All-Pro honor. The resurgent interior pass rusher is now seeking a contract update, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter and Brooke Pryor report.

This situation has morphed into a hold-in, as Pryor indicated Heyward did not suit up for practice Thursday. The 15th-year Steelers defender has mostly done work off to the side during camp, per ESPN. First-round pick Derrick Harmon has benefited in terms of team reps. Harmon is in place as a presumptive Heyward successor up front, but for the time being, the two will be expected to work together to help a Steelers defense perennially in the NFL’s upper echelon.

The parties have discussed this matter privately, per ESPN, but no progress has emerged. This would explain the matter becoming public, as the Steelers — after months of another T.J. Watt extension saga — have another cornerstone player to deal with on the contract front. Heyward, who rebounded from two groin surgeries after missing six 2023 games to post an eight-sack 2024, has been a high-end Watt sidekick in one of the sack era’s best inside-outside tandems. Heyward was open to exploring a post-Pittsburgh path last year, but his extension quieted that talk. Now, he will force the issue once again.

Heyward is going into his age-36 season, making it somewhat understandable — given his importance to the Steelers and the form he showed last season — he would be back at the table already. Though, the Steelers have rigid contract principles. They do not negotiate in-season, and they have traditionally refused to rip up deals before players’ contract years. Antonio Brown‘s past is worth recalling here.

The superstar wideout had outplayed his contract, soaring to back-to-back first-team All-Pro placements in 2014 and ’15. But two years remained on Brown’s deal in 2016. The Steelers did not budge, rather (as the Pat McAfee Show‘s Mark Kaboly reminds) moved $4MM from the mercurial wideout’s 2017 money into 2016 to placate him without setting a new contract precedent. The Steelers then extended Brown on a top-market deal early in the 2017 offseason. Brown, though, was only 28 when he landed a lucrative third contract. Heyward is much closer to the end of his career, and a 2025 decline would stand to weaken his negotiating position ahead of the 2026 offseason.

Heyward’s $14.5MM-per-year number represents a rare discount, as he was tied to a $16.4MM-AAV deal prior to that 2024 redo. Heyward’s current AAV figure sits 22nd among interior D-linemen. Far less accomplished players like Milton Williams and Zach Allen scored deals averaging more than $25MM per year, though they are obviously much younger and in better position to command that kind of money. But the offseason also saw the likes of Osa Odighizuwa reach $20MM per year and one-year Chiefs starter Tershawn Wharton top Heyward (at $15MM per).

Pittburgh’s longest-tenured player, who became the first 35-year-old D-lineman to be named first-team All-Pro since sack kingpin Bruce Smith in 1998, will attempt to use his absence to force at least a Brown-like update due to his value to the team ahead of what is expected to be an Aaron Rodgers one-and-done.

Heyward is not the only Steeler eyeing an updated contract. Chris Boswell is angling for new terms as well, according to Schefter and Pryor. One of the NFL’s best kickers, Boswell has dropped to the league’s 11th-highest-paid player at the position. Boswell is tied to a four-year, $20MM deal. The gap between Boswell and the highest-paid kickers is not nearly as wide as the Heyward gulf, but a number of specialists have passed him since that $5MM-per-year pact matched Justin Tucker atop the market in August 2022.

Like Heyward, however, Boswell is signed for two more seasons. If the Steelers do not break stride for one of the best defenders in team history, they certainly would pause with their kicker. Boswell, 34, is the team’s second-longest-tenured player. But he will likely need to wait in line here, as a true extension is unrealistic until 2026.