Steelers star suddenly ends hold-in — for now

Heyward signed a three-year, $45 million contract extension prior to the 2024 season. He said earlier this training camp that he told the team when he had an All-Pro season in 2024 he was going to come back looking to renegotiate. 

He had that All-Pro season, and in February, he was looking for a new contract.

There was little to no movement with those negotiations, resulting in Heyward's hold-in. 

He said he was just looking to be appreciated, and that he could not see playing games under his current salary of $14 million for this season. That number places him outside of the top-20 highest-paid defensive tackles in football. 

But his return to the practice field on Tuesday means one of two things.

Either he and the team have made progress on a new deal or Heyward was the first one to blink. 

At some point, something was going to have to get done here, especially as the regular season starts to approach. 

Going into the 2024 season, Heyward was coming off an injury-shortened 2023 season that was also one of the least effective of his career. Given his age, there had to be some concern that he might be on the downside of his career. Still, the Steelers gave him a long-term deal, and Heyward was happy to take the potential long-term security that came with it.

But that also robbed him of some leverage. By signing a long-term deal, there was no incentive for the Steelers to renegotiate his deal after one season. If Heyward wanted to bet on himself and get more money after a big season, he would have been further ahead had he not signed last year's deal, or if he reworked his contract to the point where he could have still been a free agent after the season.

He did neither, and that left him stuck in this situation.

There are ways for the Steelers to transfer future money on the deal into this year's salary to bring him up closer in compensation to the top defensive tackles. Would that be enough for Heyward? Are the Steelers willing to do that? Those are still big unanswered questions that will ultimately impact whether or not he is on the field when their season opens against the New York Jets on Sept. 7.