DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Will Cam Heyward play?

DK’s Daily Shot of Steelers: Will Cam Heyward play?

[Music] Football team practiced yesterday. Football team named its four captains yesterday. Football team is a handful of days away from opening up the season. Good morning to you. Good Tuesday morning. I’m Dan Kawachovich of DK Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Steelers. It comes your way bright and early every weekday except yesterday which was Labor Day. Hope you had a good weekend. If you’re into hockey andor baseball, I also offer daily shots of Penguins and Pirates. I hope you’ll check those out as well. Mike Tomlin press conference today. Three more practices this week and then it’s off to East Rutherford, New Jersey. I would love to downplay, actually just outright dismiss any possibility that Cam Hayward wouldn’t accompany the team on that trip. I’d love to do that. I’d love to say that this entire training campree was dramaree. That wouldn’t be accurate. Nor would it be accurate to say, “Well, Cam’s back. He’s practicing. He was a full participant yesterday including team drills. So what kind of holdin is this if it’s not really a hold in at all? And does that actually mean that Cam has given up on his insistence that he should get a new contract entering this season? Bearing in mind that Cam also said that he’d be willing to miss games if it came to that. Now, the correct answer to all of these questions is that we don’t know because Cam did not speak. After practice yesterday, wasn’t in the locker room, and Cam really hasn’t said much of anything since resuming a regular practice routine a few days ago. He just kind of started doing it. And in the process, I think a lot of us, myself included, at times, have just kind of let this go like, oh well, that’s over. And yet, when TJ Watt was asked after practice if he’s expecting Cam to play this weekend, TJ’s response was, “I hope he does. I hope the deal gets done.” End quote. And so came the follow-up. If no deal gets done, TJ said, “You’d have to ask him that question.” I’m going to share with you what I know from either side of this situation. First, from Cam’s side, I can attest that he has not been all that pleased with the way his stance has been received up to and including my own stance, which is fine. That’s the nature of this job, his job, the whole deal. If you’re not familiar with it, my stance is that this never should have come up. He just got an extension less than a year ago and it was exactly the extension that he wanted that he and his agent sought from the team’s side. I can unequivocally tell you that as of a few days ago, they had zero interest in even broaching the subject of reopening a contract that they just signed less than a year ago. Add those two up, mix in everything that we might not know, and it would appear that what we’re left with is Cam’s either going to play or he’s going to let a whole lot of people down. Did I mention that he was voted captain again? Have I mentioned in recent weeks since all of this unfolded that there is a sentiment in that locker room to win for Cam, to win for TJ in this season that rightly appears to be a win it all now kind of season. I haven’t changed how I feel about this at all. I just don’t think this is a smart move by either Cam and or his agent, depending on who’s more influential in this equation. Cam’s done so much for the Steelers. He’s done so much for the city of Pittsburgh. He earned that Walter Payton man of the year award NFLwide. And I can tell you that that work was done from the heart. He wasn’t one of those guys that showed up at the food distribution center and kind of went through the motions for an hour. He’s invested in that work. He’s authentic. He’s legitimate. He’s also really smart. But you want to know something? All of those things can still be true while describing a dumb decision. And that’s what this is. I can’t respect Cam any more than I do. But I also can’t disagree with him any more than I do on this. Assuming he hasn’t already, he needs to move past this. He needs to put the Steelers, he needs to put his teammates, but you want to know what else? He needs to put himself, his own self ahead of this position. And here’s what I mean by that. Cam is a legacy guy. He’s always been a legacy guy. He’s aware of who he is. He’s aware of how much people value him. He’s aware of when people don’t value him enough. And he strives to not just meet that bar that he sets for himself, but to exceed it. Well, as I said a few weeks ago, this ain’t the time. This ain’t the place. Cam can get a few extra bucks by winning this little confrontation. You know what he can’t get by sitting out? He can’t get his first playoff win in forever. He sure can’t get a Super Bowl. And I’m going to throw this out there, too. I don’t know that he can get into the Hall of Fame. I’m not saying I wouldn’t vote for him. I don’t have a vote in football, only in baseball. But I’m saying that part of what gets you into the hall, fair or not, is the storyline. Cam was always going to have a tough time with the statistics. He’s talked about this openly because of the 34 defense because he wasn’t always going to be rewarded with numbers for the things that he’s been asked to do in the defense. So, there’s got to be something more to it. There’s got to be that Jerome Bettis made it to Detroit. He got it done. That kind of thing. Whereas if Ben Rothllessberger doesn’t make that tackle and the conclusion to Jerome’s career is that fumble in Indianapolis, does he make it? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. But I did know after they won. Not everyone remembers the beginning of a story. They certainly wouldn’t remember the middle in that event. But there’s a really good chance they’ll remember the ending. Cam has a contract. Cam has a commitment and Cam, most importantly here, has a cause that’s bigger than a few extra bucks. When we come back, J1Q, [Music] this segment of Daily Shot is brought to you by our good friends at Mike’s Beer Bar. They’re located on Federal Street, directly across from PNC Park. Mike has more than 500 beers on tap, including from more than 50 local breweries. Stop in and say hello. Tell Mike we sent you. Mike’s Beer Bar. Hiring can be so timeconuming, sorting through tons of resumes, trying to get in touch with every potential candidate. Well, the future of hiring looks much brighter because Zip Recruiter’s latest tools and features. Speed up finding the right people so you save valuable time. And now you can try Zip Recruiter for free at ziprecruiter.com/audio. Over 320,000 new resumes are added to Zip Recruiter monthly. If you see a candidate you’re really interested in, you can unlock that contact instantly. Use Zip Recruiter and save time hiring. Four out of five employers who post on Ziprecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And if you go to ziprecruiter.com/audio right now, you can try it for free. Again, that’s ziprecruiter.com/audio. Ziprecruiter, the smartest way to hire. [Music] Today’s J1Q comes from Chase Schneider, who says, “DK, you mentioned on previous episodes, it seems certain the Steelers are going to try and pick a quarterback in the first round of the 2026 NFL draft. I just got to ask why. They already got a steal in Will Howard. He’s yet to throw an NFL game pass. And already you’re consigning him to the permanent backup position. Why not use that first pick to get a real starting left tackle instead? Chase, I’m going to let the left tackle thing go. We’ve been over that a lot. They need to get the best out of Brick Jones this season. You can’t just keep throwing first round picks at the same position. But this thing with the quarterbacks, the team is rarely in a state of being able to anoint somebody to any position, much less the most important position on the field. You and I can discuss and debate back and forth and back and forth about who’s number two, who’s the starter, who’s the franchise guy, who’s QB3 with the scout team, who’s franchise in waiting and all. None of that means anything to the team itself. And in fact, the team itself doesn’t even think like that. So rather than cutting up on Howard, I’m going to focus on that instead. I’ve been speaking here for months now about acquiring that franchise quarterback. And in almost every instance, I’ve been careful to stress that it’s not going to happen with a single selection. I have pointed time and time again to examples around the NFL. most recently in Foxboro where teams think they have somebody but then they don’t and they have to keep adding more into it. That’s generally how this goes. The Joe Burrows are the rarity where you just get the guy, everybody says yay, and they’ll all live happily ever after or something. I can very much sense that that’s what the fan base has wanted for a while. That’s why Kenny Picket was received the way he was. Not just because of the pit thing, but because here he is. We have him. Hey everybody, the smoke’s coming out of the chimney. We have a new quarterback. And then he goes out there and he does his thing and he falls short. And now he’s just going to find a way to play for all 32 teams, I guess. But that was always silly. And to an extent, it was silly on the Steelers part, too. It was always going to have to be about numbers. So, why was Howard drafted? Not so that everybody could anoint him and then wonder about his fate. It’s just because of the numbers. Whoever it is that the Steelers would select next year, he might well have an edge on Howard because of where he gets drafted, because of the caliber of the class, or because he’s just plain old better. But you’ll still have numbers being thrown at this. You’ll have the new guy, you’ll have Howard. remember that you have Mason Rudolph signed for another year, so you’re not left without some veteran presence who’s familiar with the playbook. Heck, you might get Aaron Rodgers back. But when it comes to the young quarterbacks, when it comes to finding the right player at that position, you can’t worry about what kind of stickers get attached to their foreheads on the way into the door. You got to put them out there and you got to let them play. And yeah, you better believe you got to have them compete. Like really compete. Consigning has nothing to do with anything. And finally here, and respectfully, my man, you say that the Steelers already got a steel in Will Howard. That was your terminology. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve based that on unless it’s just his collegiate career. and even there the end of his collegiate career and how he played the prominent role in Ohio State winning the college football championship because there really wasn’t anything in Latroe that would suggest steel even if you liked what you saw of him and there couldn’t have been anything in the preeason that would suggest steel since he didn’t even participate. Stop stop rushing to anoint these quarterbacks. Just it it’s got to play out. It’s got to play out. I appreciate the question, Chase. I do. I appreciate everybody listening to Daily Shot of Steelers. We’ll have a double shot of Steelers at 400 p.m. Eastern today. You can find that on our DK Pittsburgh Sports app that you can download for free onto your Apple and Android devices just by going to the App Store or Google Play and typing in DK Pittsburgh Sports into the search bars. After you do that, you can email me directly dkdpittsports.com for a massive discount on the premium level of that app. Hope to see you then. [Music] was

Cam Heyward’s practicing, but will he play?

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