Steelers DT Cam Heyward Reacts to HC Mike McCarthy’s “Clean House” Comment

Mike McCarthy said the Steelers need to clean their house. Cam Heyward would like everyone to take a breath about what kind of cleaning the head coach meant.

Back in his usual Tuesday spot on The Rich Eisen Show, the Steelers defensive tackle worked through the phrase that set off a fuss across Western Pennsylvania, the sideline emotion caught by the Prime Video cameras, why Jeremiah Smith is worth more than a pile of picks, and what he thinks of Jared Verse calling Pittsburgh dirty.

It started with a crossover. Rich had Bruce Arians on in the first hour, and Arians was set to be Heyward's guest on his Not Just Football podcast later that day. Heyward remembered Arians as the offensive coordinator when he was drafted, the man who had to mesh personalities like Ben, AB, Emmanuel Sanders and Hines. Rich and Chris handed him a question to ask: the story of Arians driving home, with his wife riding shotgun, after leaving the Steelers, and getting the call from the Colts that brought him back into the game. "Looks like we're back," as Chris put it. Heyward promised to ask.

Then Rich played McCarthy's sound. "We need to clean our own house," McCarthy said. "Our house is not clean right now." He added that it was only Week 5 and few teams felt good about where they were.

"I think there's two ways you can look at cleaning the house," Heyward said. "Clean house can mean we got to fire everybody. We got to get everybody out of position. I don't think he was referring to that. I hope he was not referring to that."

His read was simpler: too many self-inflicted wounds. Penalties, missed tackles, the things a team controls on its own side of the ball. He credited Cleveland for getting the job done, but did not spare his own unit. "The tackling was atrocious on our side of the ball," he said. The Steelers had some extra time off, and he called Tuesday's work a good step in the right direction.

Rich pushed on the bigger subtext. People are hanging on the "fire everybody" version, he said, because of the byplay the cameras caught between McCarthy and his quarterback, two men who have won a Super Bowl together and known each other for two decades. There was also a moment when TJ Watt put on the headset and was very demonstrative.

Heyward pushed back on the idea that confrontation means dysfunction. "I think sometimes we make so much of a big deal about being confrontational," he said. "I think Mike and Aaron can both be that way with themselves." He pointed to his own sideline arguments with TJ as proof. "It's part of the game," he said. "If you can't be your authentic self." As for Watt, Heyward explained that he was communicating with defensive coordinator Patrick Graham, which is the only way to reach him, and that the team is used to having a coordinator on the sideline.

He also had a line for anyone reading too much into the faces. "If we showed a camera on every fan's face watching that game from a Pittsburgh Steelers viewpoint, wouldn't they be acting the same way?" he asked. The frustration, he said, was not about it being Cleveland. The Steelers were up 7-0 and gave it away with penalties and missed tackles, and he would feel the same against Baltimore or Cincinnati.

Asked whether new coordinators and new systems need time to take root, especially with little preseason action, Heyward refused the out. "I'm not going to make excuses," he said. He noted the Steelers trailed New England just 10-3 late in the third quarter in that loss. "It's not a lack of talent, it's a lack of execution with our group," he said. At 2-2, the question is how to move forward on the same page.

There was a lighter detour. Heyward admitted he did not watch the London game featuring the Colts, Pittsburgh's next opponent, because he stepped away from sports after the loss. He went to a "zombies of the corn" party, got a paintball gun and took it out on some zombies. His daughter also had softball, where she loves playing catcher. "You're better than me cuz my knees hurt just even squatting that low," he said he told her, while predicting his wife, an Ohio State volleyball player, will steer her toward volleyball.

Back to football, Heyward broke down Jonathan Taylor. "JT is electric out of the backfield," he said, calling him a three-down back who can block, catch and run, helped by having Quenton Nelson leading the way. Indianapolis runs a lot of downhill duo and double-team schemes but can mix in traps, so everybody has to be coming down the line. He noted the Colts have dealt with injuries to Alec Pierce and the loss of Michael Pittman, but still have Josh Downs as an option-route weapon.

Then came the Jeremiah Smith question. Heyward also skipped watching Ohio State against Iowa, because he knew it would be done. "When you got Jeremiah Smith, do you ever think you're going to lose?" he said. Rich, citing Larry Fitzgerald calling Smith an "absolute mutant" on the show, posed the scenario: you hold the first overall pick and you do not need a quarterback. Trade it for a haul, or take Smith?

"I want Jeremiah Smith," Heyward said. "And I know that that sounds like me being a homer."

He backed it up. Heyward visited Ohio State over spring break, and his son made him take a picture with Smith. "He looks the part, guys," Heyward said. "It's not like the game is slow for him." He pointed to a catch over two defenders that looked routine. "That's the type of guy that you want to build around," he said. "If you have a quarterback, you pair those two together and say we're going to make this work for the next 10 to 20 years." His only question was what kind of package it would take to pry a team off Smith. Rich expects some quarterback to rise to the top through need, as one always does, but Heyward called it a race between Smith and another player he sees as one of the two most electric in college football.

The Ohio State talk led to Rich's Michigan pride taking a hit. After Iowa beat Michigan, Rich had to wear a Hawkeye helmet for a full segment. Heyward offered his Buckeye helmet, then some trophies. "Big 10 championships and stuff like that if you need to see," he said. Rich countered that Michigan has had a few more of those than Ohio State in recent days.

Rich saved one more stir for the end: Jared Verse's comments after the Thursday night game. "I don't got no respect for anybody that plays too dirty and that does too much extra after the game," Verse said in the sound Rich played, adding he could not wait to see them again.

Heyward did not take the bait. "Respected players get doubled," he said. "Respected players get slid to." He said he did not know if any play was dirty or what Verse was referring to, called Verse a good talent, and pointed to Myles Garrett as another player who sees that kind of attention. "Can't wait for that game back here," he said. That rematch comes in Week 8, right after Pittsburgh's trip to Paris.

That led Heyward to his real complaint: divisional games on Thursday nights and overseas. He does not like a team losing a divisional home game, and he thinks short weeks take something away from the division. "I'm not making excuses," he said, but he wondered whether teams put out their best product, citing the Rams and 49ers playing in Australia and Jacksonville and Houston heading to London.

Rich liked it so much he made it a weekly assignment. Each week, Heyward has to bring a new rule he would institute. When Rich joked that an Ohio State guy is not used to homework, Heyward reminded him he has his degree in early education. "Look at you killing zombies in early education," Rich said.