{"id":957141,"date":"2026-07-27T20:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/957141\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T20:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T20:24:17","slug":"was-always-a-battle-former-browns-all-pro-ol-praises-longtime-rival-cam-heyward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/957141\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Was Always A Battle’: Former Browns All-Pro OL Praises Longtime Rival Cam Heyward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aaron Rodgers is the Pittsburgh Steelers veteran getting most of the attention. However, Cam Heyward\u2019s work shouldn\u2019t be overlooked. Heyward was a second-team All-Pro last season at 36 years old. After turning 37 in early May, he\u2019ll try to continue defying Father Time. He won\u2019t be facing one of his longtime rivals in guard Joel Bitonio, who retired this offseason after playing 12 seasons for the Cleveland Browns.<\/a><\/p>\n

He recently talked about the fond memories he has of playing against Heyward.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t call it a beef, but I battled against Cam Heyward a bunch,\u201d Bitonio said on Ryan Ripken\u2019s YouTube channel.<\/a> \u201cI probably played him the most out of any player in the NFL. It was always a battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew what he did good, he knew what I did well. There was just those battles. You see it on the schedule, it was one of those things you look at like, \u2018Alright, we\u2019ve got Pittsburgh twice a year.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitonio and Heyward were AFC North staples for years. While the Browns have usually been at the bottom of the division, Bitonio was long one of the league\u2019s best guards. He was a first-team All-Pro twice, second-team All-Pro three times, and he also made seven Pro Bowls.<\/p>\n

Heyward entered the NFL three years earlier than Bitonio, getting drafted in 2011. However, it took him a few years to become a starter.<\/a> Most of his and Bitonio\u2019s prime years lined up, and neither of them missed a lot of time. Therefore, they faced each other plenty of times.<\/p>\n

While Bitonio\u2019s Browns were often on the wrong side of this rivalry, he got to go out with a win over Heyward\u2019s Steelers. Their last matchup was in Week 17 last year, and the Steelers lost, 13-6. Heyward wasn\u2019t awful, recording six total tackles, but he was held without a sack.<\/p>\n

In fact, Heyward didn\u2019t have a sack in either of the Steelers\u2019 2025 games against the Browns. The last time that he brought Cleveland\u2019s quarterback down was in Week 14 of 2024. That was a big day for Heyward, though, as he recorded two sacks.<\/p>\n

Losing Bitonio is big for the Browns, but they didn\u2019t do too bad of a job replacing him, signing Zion Johnson. Johnson was a Los Angeles Chargers first-round pick in 2022. While he doesn\u2019t have any accolades to his name, he was a solid starter with the Chargers. He\u2019s got youth on his side, but Heyward shouldn\u2019t be underestimated. The veteran defensive lineman looked like he had plenty of gas left in the tank last year.<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Rodgers is the Pittsburgh Steelers veteran getting most of the attention. However, Cam Heyward\u2019s work shouldn\u2019t be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":957142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[4034,54,7,19973,6,520,57,2360,96934,426],"class_list":["post-957141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-cameron-heyward","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-football","tag-joel-bitonio","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-ryan-ripken","tag-steelers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116993816243029820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957141","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=957141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/957142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}