Steelers DT Cam Heyward Talks Jared Verse, Bengals, Tomlin & More with Rich

Cam Heyward is sitting on a bye week at 6-2 and in first place in the AFC North, and he still had time to record a podcast with his old head coach. His verdict on Mike Tomlin's TV career: "Guys, he's not coming back."

Heyward joined The Rich Eisen Show fresh off taping an episode of his "Not Just Football" podcast with Tomlin, and he made it sound like his former coach is enjoying life a little too much. "He's way too happy. I'm kind of jealous," Heyward said. "Like, what did I do to make you feel this way?"

Rich came "through the front door" first. A week earlier, he had asked Heyward about Jared Verse, and the conversation had turned into a storyline that left Heyward and his teammates answering questions. Was Heyward upset with him for stirring it up? "Look at you, Rich. Just stirring the pot, you know, right in the kitchen of the AFC North," Heyward said. He wasn't bothered. "I'm glad you kind of just jogged my memory so I could remember those thoughts because that was clearly on our mind," he said. "You did a great job of setting it up. I didn't have to say anything, but I did."

Then the Steelers backed it up. "The play's always got to do the talking," Heyward said. "You can talk as much as you want, but the way you win this game is on the field."

After wins in Tampa and Paris, the Steelers came home and held serve against the Browns so convincingly that the stadium never got to "Renegade." "Game was out of control by then," Heyward said. "We were waiting for a Renegade, but we never got it in."

Rich asked about Mason McCormick flipping Verse on a field goal play. Surely McCormick knew who he was flipping? Heyward wouldn't go there. "I've been on those field goal scrums, and if a guy jumps, you have full ability to take advantage of that." He did note that McCormick has a wrestling background.

The bye week, Heyward said, is about getting away from the game, letting injuries heal and spending time with a family that is "well overdue" for it. Coming out of it is a big one against the Bengals, a chance to sweep Cincinnati with the Ravens' quarterback room in flux. Heyward stuck to one game at a time. He cited Burrow, Higgins and Chase on offense and said that on defense "look no further than Dexter Lawrence. So, we're going to have our hands full."

Rich let the cliché slide and asked for the team's unsung MVP. Heyward named two. "It's Jaylen Warren. I don't think we're talking enough about the guy. He is balling on an absurd pace right now." Rich protested that the show had a delightful chat with Warren a couple of weeks ago, so he gave Heyward the floor on the second name, Zach Frazier.

"Zach Frazier is the glue guy on our offensive line," Heyward said. "I think he's playing the best out of any offensive lineman in this league." He described Frazier as a complete player, a young ascending guy going against great competition like Dexter Lawrence. When the preseason question was whether Pittsburgh's line could protect Aaron, "it starts with Zach Frazier and he's answering that call."

Rich also asked about Aaron's postgame podium, where he still sounded displeased with the offense and noted banners don't get raised for being 6-2. Rich reminded Heyward that the Steelers were 8-2 a couple of years ago and it didn't work out. Heyward liked the message. "We're not a complete team yet. On offense and on defense we got to continue to grow," he said. "I love that he's not settling. I love that you have a quarterback that thinks we can be better."

Heyward comes to the show most weeks with a thought-provoking rule change, and this one got pushback. When a team is up three touchdowns with 10 minutes left in a big game, he wants a running clock "so we can get everybody out of the stadium a little bit faster." Rich was aghast. "This is not youth football." Wouldn't Heyward want the clock to stop if his team needed a comeback? "I want to be up 21. I don't want to be down 21," Heyward said. "I'm thinking we're winning, buddy." Chris had concerns of his own, which Rich translated as being about Las Vegas, Nevada, "and not the Raiders." Heyward's solution: "We can shut those off, too."

Then came the Halloween photo. Heyward's first costume was the Mandalorian, a custom-made suit that was falling off and so dark he couldn't see through the mask, a problem for a man who likes to drive his golf cart around the neighborhood and "police everybody" to make sure the kids get their candy. So he pivoted to Fred Flintstone. While he was making mummy dogs with the kids, his wife came downstairs in a Napoleon Dynamite getup he wasn't ready for. "She's killing it," he said. Now it's a household tradition: neither tells the other their costume.

This week's podcast guest is Mel Blount, and Heyward marveled at him. "It makes no sense that he was able to dominate the way he did and play as fast as he did," he said. "He played the game the right way and they tried to change the game against him." Rich recalled meeting Blount at the Hall of Fame and looking up and up, with the cowboy hat making him seem eight feet tall. "He was playing against children for a good part of time," Heyward said.

Which brought Rich back to Tomlin, halfway through his first season as an analyst. Is he done coaching? Heyward said Tomlin told him as soon as he walked in, "I win every week now." "I'm not going to fight against that," Heyward said, "because that's a pretty sweet job he's got going on over there."

It isn't entirely out of his system. "I'm still receiving a lot of texts in our group chats," Heyward said, a chain that is just him, TJ and Tomlin, who "tends to poke and prod." Tomlin still cares deeply. But, Heyward said, "I don't know if you can get him out of this situation he's got going on right now. It's going to be pretty tough."