{"id":746326,"date":"2026-02-12T04:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/746326\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T04:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:57:16","slug":"you-just-gonna-air-that-out-now-joey-porter-sr-reveals-cam-heyward-had-offseason-knee-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/746326\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You Just Gonna Air That Out Now?’: Joey Porter Sr. Reveals Cam Heyward Had Offseason Knee Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Cam Heyward contemplates playing in 2026<\/a>, it sounds like he may have gone under the knife to clean up his knee. At least that\u2019s what Joey Porter Sr. implied on Heyward\u2019s Not Just Football podcast<\/a>. At 36 years old, he\u2019s taken his share of lumps, so cleanup procedures shouldn\u2019t be surprising. But with the amount of change in Pittsburgh right now, it\u2019s worth considering all the variables regarding his future.<\/p>\n

Heyward had Porter and NFL insider Dianna Russini as guests on his podcast. Russini was gently prodding Heyward about whether he would retire, given Mike Tomlin\u2019s resignation. As is his nature, Porter interjected.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will see\u201d, Heyward said about his future. Then Porter responded, \u201cMan, he didn\u2019t get that knee all fixed up for nothing\u201d. While he left it in the cut of the podcast, Heyward seemed surprised by the reveal. \u201cDamn, you\u2019re just gonna air that out, too?\u201d he said with a smile. Looking back at his co-host, Hayden Walsh threw his hands up and said, \u201cI didn\u2019t say it, don\u2019t look at me!\u201d<\/p>\n

Russini then joked about having breaking news that Cam Heyward was not retiring. The panel then joked about Porter being an insider, to which he responded, \u201cWell, I knew because you had surgery\u201d. Even more flustered, Heyward said, \u201cYeah, just keep going! \u2018I knew you had surgery’\u201d as if to say, \u201cPeezy, stop spilling the beans\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Cam Heyward played every game last season for the Steelers, totaling 823 snaps in the regular season. That was a higher workload\u2014though the same percentage\u2014as last season when he played 778 snaps in 17 games.<\/p>\n

While he had no major injuries during the year, he did have one scare<\/a>. At the start of the Steelers\u2019 Week 18 game against the Ravens, he took a friendly-fire hit to the knee. Chasing down RB Derrick Henry, he found teammate CB James Pierre jostled into a collision course with his lower body after WR Zay Flowers blocked him into Heyward.<\/p>\n

Pierre made direct contact with his knee, and Heyward left the game, which drew concern from his teammates. But he soon returned and played a strong game<\/a>\u2014including 37 total snaps, or 72.5 percent. He finished the contest with 7 tackles and a quarterback hit\u2014and three snaps on offense as the Tush Pusher.<\/p>\n

Obviously, that lone knee injury wasn\u2019t severe enough to do significant damage. If the Steelers had concerns about it, at the very least, they might have abandoned their plan to throw him on offense following TE Darnell Washington\u2019s injury. But it could have contributed to accumulating issues that prompted Heyward\u2019s theoretical knee operation.<\/p>\n

Heyward did have an MRI at the end of the season. He mentioned that he was the last one into the meeting room when Tomlin announced his resignation because he was \u201chandling an MRI, he told Rich Eisen<\/a>. \u201cDid I just hear this right? Mike T\u2019s about to step down?\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At least based on Heyward\u2019s reaction to Porter\u2019s comment, it seems likely he did have some type of cleanup procedure. As far as Porter\u2019s remarks implying that he might not have done it, or needed to do it, if he didn\u2019t intend to keep playing, that\u2019s neither here nor there. He can still have had it done as a necessary condition to play while still weighing his options<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, while he won\u2019t come out and say it, it appears very much that Cam Heyward intends to return for a 16th season. It will be his first\u2014everybody in Pittsburgh\u2019s first\u2014without Mike Tomlin<\/a>, though. But they seem to have respect for Mike McCarthy<\/a>, a Pittsburgh native with a winning record. And quite possibly the man responsible for Heyward being in Pittsburgh. It was because McCarthy\u2019s Packers beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII that they had the 31st pick in the draft, rather than the 32nd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Cam Heyward contemplates playing in 2026, it sounds like he may have gone under the knife to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4034,7,33851,6,33852,57,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-746326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-cameron-heyward","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-joey-porter-sr","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-not-just-football","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116055890159421648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}