Drama brewing between Pittsburgh Steelers and top star over new contract: ‘You gotta do what’s right for you’
This is the time of year when athletes use their availability to negotiate better deals, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are the most recent team to have a top player prepared to sit out the season in quest of a new deal.
A large portion of the NFL offseason’s major events are in the past. All of the best players in this year’s market signed deals with new teams when free agency began in March. The annual NFL Draft took place in April, and all of the top prospects in this year’s class have signed with an NFL team and are getting ready for their league debuts. The offseason’s holdout phase is about to begin.
- Cameron Heyward contract: Four years, $65.6 million
There has been a lot of debate about the future of San Francisco 49ers star receiver Brandon Aiyuk, and if he could be a camp holdout as he seeks a huge raise in the final year of his contract. However, the Pittsburgh Steelers are already in the early stages of a months-long holdout scenario with a top star.
This week brought rookie minicamps around the league, and voluntary minicamps will follow next week. It’s an event that many veterans do not attend but Steelers captain Cameron Heyward is making an early public stance that he is not happy with the fact that he is in the final year of his contract and has no plans of being at voluntary camp this month.
“You gotta do what’s right for you,” Heyward said on a new edition of his podcast “Not Just Football with Cam Heyward.” “I’m training hard. It’s nothing I’m not doing on and off the field. I’m doing everything possible. We’ll get there when we get there.”
2023 stats for Cameron Heyward: 11 games, 2 sacks, 33 tackles, and 3 quarterback hits
The six-time Pro Bowler is now in the last year of a $65.6 million, four-year contract he signed in 2021. Although Heyward is a key member of the current Steelers squad and the team captain, the team may be reluctant to commit to a multi-year contract at his age of 35. Instead, they may choose to wait and see if he fully recovers from his torn groin muscle injury from the previous season.
